MIRARI VOS
Pope Gregory XVI
1832

Confraternity of Christ the King
http://ccregis.org

ENCYCLICAL LETTER

to all the patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops of
the Catholic world.

POPE GREGORY XVI

Venerable brethren, health and apostolic benediction.

We are thinking to show you why We have not yet given
letters to you, as both custom from the earliest
times and Our goodwill toward you requires, since the
management of the universal Church was imposed on Our
humility.  It was, indeed, greatly in Our will that We
immediately lay forth Our heart over you, and in the
communication of the spirit say those things to you in the
voice by which We have been commanded to strengthen the
brethren in the person of the blessed Peter.^[Lc22:32.] In
truth, you have well known what a storm of evils and
hardships We have been in from the first moments of Our
pontificate, in what rough seas We were placed, in which,
unless the right hand of God had made strength, you would
have groaned to see Us drowned from the foulest conspiracy
of impious men.  The mind flees from the saddest
recollection of such great crises, to excite again this
grief which was received; and We bless the Father of all
consolation more powerfully, who, enemies having been
scattered, has delivered Us from the present danger, and,
the most turbulent storm having been calmed, gave us a
respite from fear.  We proposed immediately to communicate
counsel with you, for healing the griefs of Israel; but the
immoderate heap of concerns by which We have been covered in
bringing about the rebuilding of public order, then threw a
delay at Our will to do this.

Meanwhile, a new cause of silence approached because of the
haughtiness of factious men, who again tried to raise the signs
of treason.  Indeed, We finally had to restrain by the
rod, by the authority divinely brought together in Us,
although with tremendous grief, such a great obstinacy of men, 
whose unbridled rage with daily impunity was seen not to
be mitigated by the indulgence of Our kindess, but rather
nourished by it^[1Cor4:21.]; from which, just as you can
already conclude, Our urgency has been made more laborious
by the day.

But when We undertook possession of the pontificate in the
Lateran basilica in the custom and establishment of the
ancients, finally casting away every delay regarding what We
had postponed for these same causes, We hurried to you,
venerable brethren; We give this letter and witness of Our
will toward you on this most joyful day, on which We
complete in a solemn feast concerning the triumph of the
most holy Virgin assumed into heaven, that she, the
protector and preserver among the greatest of all disasters,
herself may favorably stand by Us writing to you, and
influence Our mind with her heavenly inspiration in those
counsels which will so greatly be for the salvation of the
Christian flock.

We come to you with a mind made sad; We know you are greatly
anxious due to your eagerness for religion,  in the great
harshness of the times in which it has turned.  For We have
truly said that now is the hour of the power of darkness,
for sifting, like wheat, the sons of election.^[Lc22:53.]
*And the earth is infected by the inhabitants thereof:
because they have transgressed the laws, they have changed
the ordinance, they have broken the everlasting
covenant*.^[Is24:5.]

We speak, venerable brethren, about those things which you
yourselves see with your own eyes, which We therefore bemoan
with common tears.  Wickedness rejoices eagerly:  a shameful
knowledge, a dissolute license.  The holiness of sacred
things is despised, and the majesty of the divine cult,
which possesses a great force and a great need, is
disapproved, befouled, and held in mockery by wicked men.
Sound doctrine is hence subverted, and errors of every kind
are boldly spread about.  Neither the laws of sacred things,
nor rights, nor institutions, nor any discipline whatever is
safe from this bold wickedness of speaking.  This, Our Roman
see of the most blessed Peter, in which Christ placed the
mainstay of the Church, is bitterly troubled; and the bonds
of unity, in these days more shaken, are broken.  The divine
authority of the Church is attacked, and her rights are
shattered; she is spread out beneath earthly accounts, and she is
thrown down with the greatest injury to the hatred of the
people, driven back into a disgusting servitude.  The
obedience owed to the bishops is broken, and their rights
are trampled.  The academies and the schools ring out, in a
horrible way, with new monsters of opinions, by which the
Catholic faith is openly and with greater filth attacked;
and the awful and wicked war against her is already waged
publicly and openly.  For with institutions and the example
of teachers, with the souls of the youth corrupted, the
unnatural defeat of religion and the foul perversion of
morals becomes widespread.  Then, eventually, the bridle of
most holy religion—by which alone kingdoms hold together—having been
cast down, the rule of force and strength is hardened; We
see the growth of the ruin of public order, the slipping of
leadership, and the inversion of every legitimate power.
This heap of disasters, indeed, must be ascribed in the
first place to the conspiracy of those societies into which
whatever is disgraceful and blasphemous in any of the
heretical and most wicked sects flows together as into a
bilge, as a solidification of all filth.

These things, venerable brethren, and others perhaps even
graver, which it would be long to contemplate at the present
and which you rightly know, command that We be in sorrow,
harsh and long-lasting indeed, for it is needful that the
zeal of the universal house of God should consume those who
are established in the Chair of the prince of the apostles
more than others.  Truly, since We have recognized that We
are put in this place, in which it does not suffice to
merely deplore these uncountable evils, but to also strain
with Our powers to shatter them; We flee to the power of
your faith, and We call upon your concern for the salvation
of the Catholic flock, venerable brethren; the strength and
religion and unique prudence and attentive attendance to
that salvation adds souls for Us, and in such a severity of
issues endures afflictions with a very welcome consolation.
Of course, it is Our part to take up Our voice and try all
things, lest the boar from the forest tear down the vine, or
lest the wolf slaughter the flock; it is Ours to drive the
sheep only into fodder which might be salvific for them, not
rather to a thin one in a destructive mistrust.  Far be it,
most beloved, far be it, that, when such evils press them,
such crises overhang them, pastors be absent from their
office, and the sheep be struck down by fear, or, the care
of the flock being cast away, they be numb in leisure or
idleness.  Let us, therefore, in unity of spirit make Our
common cause, or more truly, the cause of God; and let there
be one vigilance and one effort of all for the salvation of
the whole people.

You indeed far excel if you apply yourselves to what the
reason of your office demands, and also to the
doctrine—continuously recalling it to mind—*that the
universal Church is harmed by any novelty whatever*,^[Pope
S. Celestine, letter 21 to the bishops of Gaul.] and the
warning from Pope St. Agatho^[Pope St. Agatho, letter to the
emperor, in Labb., tom. 11, p. 235, Mansi ed.] that *nothing
should be lessened in those things which are defined
according to the rules; nothing should be changed; nothing
should be added; but they must be kept intact in both words
and sense*.  Therefore, an unmoved firmness of unity, which
is held together by this Chair of blessed Peter as if by its
very foundation, so that all the rights of revered communion
may flow from it into all churches, there let there be a
wall, and safety, and a harbor free of waves, and a treasure
of uncountable goods for all.^[Pope S.  Innocent, letter 11,
in Constat.] Therefore, to blunt the boldness of those who
either try to break off the rights of this Holy See, or
cleave the union of the churches from her, on which each of
them depends and thrives, impress the greatest eagerness of
sincere veneration and of faith in her, crying out with the
holy Cyprian^[S. Cyprian, _De unitate Eccl._] *he falsely
believes himself in the Church, who departs from the Chair
of Peter, upon whom the Church is founded*.

In this, therefore, pains and continuous watching must
be taken by you, that the deposit of faith be guarded
within such a conspiracy of impious men, which We bewail
for its destruction and pillage.  Let all remember the
judgement of sound doctrine, with which the people must
be saturated, and that the direction and administration of
the universal Church is in the hands of the Roman pontiff,
to whom *the full power of feeding, ruling, and governing
the universal Church has been handed down by Christ
the Lord*, as the fathers of the Council of Florence
eloquently declared.^[Council of Florence, sess. 25, in
the definitions.  In Labb., tom. 18, col 527, Venet. edit.]
And it is for every bishop to faithfully adhere to the
Chair of Peter, to guard the deposit [of faith] religiously
and in a holy way, and to feed the flock of God which is
in them.  Priests, indeed, must be subject to the bishops,
whom *just as parents of the soul, must be received by
them*, Hieronymus advises^[St. Hieronymus, letter 2 to
Nepot., a.  1, 24.]: nor must they ever forget that it
is forbidden even by the ancient canons to do anything
in the ministry received, and to take upon themselves the
office of teaching and preaching, *without the statement
of the bishop, to whose faith the people is entrusted, and
from whom an account will be demanded for their souls*.
Finally, it is firm and certain that all those who labor
at all against this established order disturb the state
of the Church, as much as is in them.

Further, it is wrong, and absolutely alien to this eagerness
of veneration by which the laws of the Church must be
welcomed, that the discipline confirmed by her, in which is
contained the management of sacred things, the standard of
morals, and the rule of the laws of the Church and of her
ministers, should be disapproved of with a wild desire of
opinining either that it be observed as dangerous with
respect to certain principles of natural law, or that it be
said to be maimed and imperfect, and subject to the civil
authority.

And since, as We use the words of the fathers of Trent, it
is evident that the Church *has learned from Christ Jesus
and His apostles, and been taught by the daily suggestion of
the Holy Spirit, all truth*,^[Conc. Trid., session 13, dec.
on the Eucharist, in the progue.] it is clearly absurd and
greatly hurtful to her, to be thrust into a certain
*restoration and regeneration* as if it were considered
necessary for her safety and growth, as if she herself could
be judged guilty of either failing, or darkening, or
being detrimental in any other way; by which, indeed, the
innovators consider that by their effort *the foundations of
a fresh human institution may be cast*, and that emerge
which Cyprian hates: that what is a divine thing, *may
become a human Church*.^[St. Cyprian, letter 52, edit.
Baluz.]  Let those who devise this type of plan truly
consider that to the one Roman Pontiff, in the testimony of
St. Leo, *is to be entrusted the dispensation of laws*, and
to the extent it is his, it is truly not a private man's, to
settle anything *concerning the rules of the laws of the
fathers*, and thus, as St. Gelasius writes,^[Pope St.
Gelasius, in letter to the bishops of Lucania.] *to balance
the decrees of the canons and to measure the commands of his
predecessors, that what the necessity of the times demands
be relaxed for the restoration of the Church, might, by a
careful consideration, be tempered*.

And here We wish your aroused perseverance on behalf of religion
against the most filthy conspiracy concerning clerical
celibacy, which you know is boiling up extensively recently,
striving, with the degenerate philosophers of Our time, a few
even from the ecclesiastical order itself, who are forgetful
of their person and their gift, and snatched by the
flatteries of desires, rush forth to this license that they
have dared to propose publicly and even repeatedly in many
places, to break through this most holy discipline.  But it
is disgusting to digress on these disgraceful attempts with
a long speech, and rather We faithfully commit to your
religion that you strive, by every power, that this law of
very great importance, prescribed by the sacred canons,
against which the darts of the lascivious are directed from
all sides, be guarded, vindicated, and defended.

Then, the honorable marriage of Christians, which Paul has
called *a great sacrament… in Christ and in the
church*.^[Eph5:32.], demands Our common concern, lest
anything against its sanctity, or lessening its indissoluble
bond, be thought or attempted.  Our predecessor of happy
memory, Pius VIII, has already zealously commended this to
you.  Still, however, dangerous efforts continue to grow up
against it.  Therefore, the people must be carefully taught
that a marriage, once duly begun, can no longer be
separated, and that God has placed between those tied
together by marriage a perpetual partnership and a knot of
necessity which cannot be broken except by death.  Mindful
that it be counted among, and thus placed under, the sacred
things of the Church, let them have the pre-established laws
of the Church concerning it before their eyes; let them
prepare with those laws in a holy and careful way, and the
strength, firmness, and just partnership of the same
marriage depends altogether upon them.  Let them beware,
lest they admit for any reason what she blocks by the
established sacred canons and the decrees of the councils,
rightly knowing that unhappy ends will come to such
marriages, which are joined either against the discipline of
the Church, or not first blessed by God, or solely by the
heat of desire; such that no thought is had by the spouses
about the sacrament and the mysteries which are signified by
it.

Now We come to another very fertile cause of evils by which
We bewail that the Church is afflicted at the present:
*indifferentism*, of course, or that deformed opinion, which
has become very widespread by the fraud of wicked men, that
eternal salvation of the soul is obtained by any 
profession of faith whatever, if morals are maintained to a
standard of rightness and honesty.  But it's an easy
business:  in this clear and plainly evident matter, you will
drive out this very destructive error from the 
people entrusted to your care.  The apostle warning,^[Eph4:5.] *One
Lord, one faith, one baptism*, let those who devise to open
the door of beatitude from any religion whatever be afraid,
and reflect in the mind on the testimony of the Savior
Himself, *that he is against Christ, because he is not with
Christ*^[Lc11:23.], and that they who gather not with Him
will unhappily scatter; and therefore *without doubt, they will
be eternally lost, unless they hold the Catholic faith, and
serve it wholly and without injury*.^[Athanasian Creed.] Let
them hear Jerome, who, when the Church was cut into three
parts by schism, said that he was steadfast in his
intention; that when someone leaned on him to attach
himself to them, he continually cried out, *If someone is
joined to the Chair of Peter, he is mine*.^[St. Jerome,
letter 57.]  But some will falsely flatter himself, that he
also is regenerated in water.  For Augustine^[St. Aug., on
the psalms against the Donatists.] suitably responded:
*Even a twig which has been cut from the vine has the same
shape; but what doth the shape profit it, if it doth not
live from the root?*

And from this exceedingly rotten source of *indifferentism*
flows that absurd and erroneous notion, or rather delusion,
that *liberty of conscience* for everyone must be protected
and vindicated.  Indeed, that full and unlimited freedom of
opinions, which marches in a broad landslide in the sacred
and civil communities, spreads the way for a most
unhealthy error, with some saying, with the greatest
impudence, that something of benefit flows from it into
religion.  *But what worse death of the soul is there than
liberty of error!*, Augustine said.^[St. Aug., letter 166.]
Of course, having withdrawn every bridle by which men are
kept on the path of truth, already running headlong in their
nature, inclined to evil, We truly say that *the well of the
deep*^[Apoc9:3.] is opened, from which John saw smoke
rising, by which the sun was hidden, from which locusts came
forth to lay waste to the earth.  For from there are the
changes of minds; from there is the corruption of youth into
lower things; from there is the contempt of sacred things
and of most holy laws in the people; from there, in a word,
is the most deadly plague of any whatsoever in the republic,
since experience testifies (or it is known from the most
ancient times) that cities which flourished in powers, rule,
and glory, have been cut down by this one evil: by an
unlimited freedom of opinions, by a license of speech, and
by the desire of new things.

To this point looks that most degenerate and never
sufficiently detested freedom of the art of the booksellers
to sell whatever writings they want to the people, which
some dare to demand and advance with such a noise.  We
tremble, venerable brethren, considering with what monsters
of doctrines, or rather with what omens of errors We will be
buried, which are everywhere spread far and wide by this
huge multitude of books and booklets, and this mass of
little writings (but in malice very great), from which We
weep over the curse coming out over the face of the earth.
There are nevertheless some, O sorrow! who are dragged off
by this shamelessness to vehemently proclaim this muck of
errors rushing out from there to be abundantly enough offset
by any book which is read for fighting on behalf of religion
and truth, in this great storm of perversities.  This is
clearly wrong, and disproven by every law, that deeds of
certain and greater evil be accomplished because there is
hope that from it something good will be had.  Surely, what
sensible person would say that poisons should be freely
spread and publicly bought and sold, indeed even drunk,
because there is some remedy by which those who use it may
happen to be delivered from ruin again and again?

Truly, there has long been another discipline of the Church:
in destroying the plague of wicked books, even from the age
of the apostles, whom we read publicly burned a great
quantity of books.^[Act19.]  It is enough that the laws of
the Fifth Lateran Council, given to read in this matter, and
the constitution which was decreed following it by Our
predecessor of happy memory, Leo X, lest *that which is
found wholesome for the increase of faith and the spread of
the good arts, may be turned to the contrary, and bear loss
to the salvation of the faithful of Christ*.^[Act. Lateran
V, session 10, where the constitution of Leo X is referred.
The constitution of Alexander VI, *Inter multiplices*, must
be read before, in which there is more on the matter.] That,
indeed, was the greatest care for the fathers of Trent, who
summoned a remedy for such a great evil by the most salutary
decree constructing the index of books in which impure
doctrine is contained.^[Trent, sess. 18 and 25.]  *It must
be bitterly fought*, said Clement XIII, Our predecessor of
happy memory, in his own encyclical letters on the
forbidding of harmful books,^[Clem. XIII, _Christianæ_, 25
Nov 1766.] *it must be bitterly fought, as the thing itself
demands, and strongly, that the deadly bane of so many books
be destroyed:  for never has the matter of error been
carried off, except the wicked elements of perversity
perish, burned in the flames*.  From this constant concern
of all ages, therefore, by which this Holy Apostolic See has
always condemned doubtful and harmful books, and striven to
tear them away from the hands of men, it stands most clearly
how greatly false, rash, insulting to the same Apostolic
See, and productive of evils in the Christian people is the
doctrine of these immoderate people, who not only reject the
censure of books, just as if it is exceedingly grave and
burdensome, but even progress to another wickedness: that
they preach that it is abhorrent to the right principles of
law, and they dare to deny to the Church the right of
considering and deciding this.

And since We have learned that certain doctrines concerning
writings being spread to the people have been published, by
which the faith and submission owed toward princes is being
shaken, and torches of treason are everywhere being lit:
let him greatly beware, lest the deceived peoples be led
away from the right path.  Let all attend that *there is no
power but from God*, according to the warning of the
apostle, *and those that are, are ordained of God.
Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the
ordinance of God. And they that resist, purchase to
themselves damnation.*^[Rom13:1–2.]  Wherefore, both human
and divine laws cry out to those who strive to desert, by
disgraceful arts of treason and sedition, trust in princes,
and to topple them from rule.

And because of this, clearly, lest the Christian ancients
disgrace themselves with such shame, although in raging
persecutions, nevertheless they stood firm to be worthy of
the emperors and of the safety of the empire, and much more,
of faith, by doing carefully and readily those things which
they commanded them which were not contrary to religion, but
also proving it more brilliantly by steadfastness and by
pouring out blood even in battle.  *Christian soldiers*,
said St. Augustine,^[S. Aug., in psalt. 124 n.7.] *served an
unbelieving emperor; when it came to the cause of Christ,
they did not recognize anyone except Him, Who was in heaven.
They distinguished the eternal Lord from the temporal lord,
and nevertheless they were subject to the temporal lord for
the sake of the eternal Lord.* This indeed the holy
unconquered martyr Mauritius, chief of the Theban legion,
proposed to himself in his mind when, as St. Eucherius
reports, he responded thus to the emperor^[S. Eucher. in
Ruinart. Acts H. Martyrs, on St. Maurit., n. 4.]:
*We are thy soldiers, O Emperor, but nevertheless we are
servants of God, which we freely confess… And now this last
necessity of life has not driven us to rebellion; behold, we
have arms, and we do not resist, because we want to die, or
rather to be killed.* Which, indeed, the brighter faith in
princes of the early Christians shines forth by it, if with
Tertullian^[Tertul., _Apol_., ch. 37.] it is considered
by Christians of the time that they would not want for
strength of numbers and goods, if they wanted to force their
enemies.  *We are outsiders*, he said to them, *and we fill
all your places:  cities, islands, fortresses, towns, public
places, the fields themselves, the tribes, squads, the
palace, the senate, the forum… for what war would we not be
suited and ready, even one unequal in forces, if according
to our discipline it were not better to be killed than to
kill, we who are so freely slaughtered?  If we, such a force
of men, removed to some bend of the world, and broke away
from you, the sending away of so many citizens of whatever
sort would certainly cover up your domination with shame;
indeed, also it would punish it by that desertion.  Far from
doubt, you would become frightened because of your solitude…
you would search for whom you might command; more enemies
than citizens would remain for you; but now you have fewer
enemies because of the multitude of Christians.*

These distinguished examples of immovable subjection to
princes, which necessarily proceed from the holiest commands
of the Christian religion, condemn the haughtiness and
wickedness, which must be detested, of those who, boiling
with an abject and unbridled desire of an impudent liberty,
are all in it, that any rights of princes whatever may be
shaken and hemmed in, brought into servitude to the people
under an appearance of liberty.  To this conclusion these
most wicked delusions and counsels necessarily wrap up those
of the Waldensians, Beghards, Wycliffites, and of the other
sons of Belial, who were the filth and disgrace of the human
race, rightly therefore to be pierced through by this
Apostolic See with many anathemas.  Nor do these other old
hands stretch forth all their strength for another cause,
except that, rejoicing, they may congratulate themselves
with Luther, that *they are free from all things*, because
they approach all disgraceful things whatsoever more boldly,
that they may follow them more quickly and easily.

Nor can We forbode happier things for either religion or
rulers from the desires of those who wish that the Church be
separated from the kingdom, and that the mutual agreement of
the emperor and the priesthood be broken up.  Of course, it
is certain that this agreement, which always proves
favorable and helpful to both the civil and sacred orders,
is very frightening to the lovers of this most shameless
liberty.

But to other, very harsh, causes, by which We are concerned,
and by which We are choked with a special pain in this
common crisis, certain organizations and meetings of state
are approaching, in which, as in a crowd made together with the
followers of any false religion and worship, imitating the
piety of religion, but truly with a desire of promoting
novelty and sedition everywhere, freedom of every type is
proclaimed, disturbances in the civil and sacred realms are
stirred up, and every holier authority is plucked up.

Reasonably grieving these things in the soul, nevertheless
trusting in Him Who commands the winds and makes them calm,
We write to you, venerable brethren, that, the shield of
faith being donned,  you strive to fight strenuously the
battles of the Lord.  It pertains more clearly to you, to
stand on the wall against every loftiness raising itself
against the knowledge of God.  Stretch forth the sword of
the spirit, which is the word of God, and let those who
hunger for justice have bread from you.  Claim that you be
active cultivators in the vineyard of the Lord; do this one
thing; work likewise in this, that any root of bitterness
whatever may be driven out from the field entrusted to you,
and every seed of vice having been killed off, a joyful crop
of virtues may grow strong there.  Embracing first with a
fatherly feeling those who drive the soul to the sacred
disciplines especially, and to the philosophical questions,
may you be encouragers and authorities for them, lest rashly
relying on the powers of their own natures alone, they go
away from the path of truth onto the road of the impious.
May they remember that God is the leader of wisdom and the
corrector of the wise,^[Wis7:15.] and that it cannot be done
that we learn about God without God, Who teaches men to know
God by the Word.^[S. Irenæus, lib. 14, cap. 10.]  The proud,
or rather it is of the foolishness of men, examine the
mysteries of faith, which surpass every sense, with human
thoughts, and trust in the reason of our mind, which is weak
and feeble by the condition of human nature.

Moreover, may Our dearly beloved sons in Christ, the
princes, favor by their own power and authority these common
desires for the safety of the sacred and public spheres; let
them consider them as given to them not only for the control of the
world, but especially for the protection of the Church.  Let
them carefully attend that whatever is done for the welfare
of the Church is born for their own rule and peace; indeed,
let them urge themselves that they owe more to the cause of
the faith than of the kingdom, and let them think that it is
great for them; We say, with holy Leo the pope, *if to their
diadem is added also a crown of faith by the hand of the
Lord*.  They are placed like parents and protectors of the
people, they produce true, constant, quiet riches and
tranquility for them, if they lean chiefly into this care,
that religion and piety toward God be unharmed; on Whose
thigh is written:  *King of kings, and Lord of lords*.

But that all these things may successfully and happily
occur, let us raise our eyes and hands to the most holy
Virgin Mary, who alone destroys all heresies, and who is Our
greatest trust, indeed the whole reason of Our hope.^[From
the sermon of St. Bernard on the birth of the B.V.M., § 7.]
In her protection in the great necessity of the Lord's
flock, may she beg for most successful outcomes from Our
counsels and actions.  Let us request it also, in humble
prayer, from the prince of the apostles, Peter, and from his
co-apostle Paul, that you all might stand upon the wall,
lest the foundation be placed elsewhere than where it has
been placed.  Relying on this pleasant hope, We trust that
the author and completer of the faith, Jesus Christ, is
finally about to console Us all in our tribulations, which
have found Us exceedingly, and We lovingly impart the
supporting apostolic blessing of heavenly help upon you,
venerable brethren, and on the sheep handed over to your
care.

Given at Rome, before holy Mary Major, on the eighteenth day
before the kalends of September, the day of the solemn
Assumption of the same Blessed Virgin Mary, in the year of
the Lord's incarnation one thousand eight hundred and
thirty-two, the second year of Our pontificate.


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