VEHEMENTER NOS
Pope Pius X
1906

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

ENCYCLICAL LETTER

of Our Lord Pius X, by divine providence Pope, to the
Archbishops, Bishops, and all the clergy and people of
France.

TO OUR BELOVED SONS
S. R. E. FRANCIS MARY RICHARD, CARDINAL PRIEST,
ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS;
S. R. E. VICTOR LUCIANO LÉCOT, CARDINAL PRIEST,
ARCHBISHOP OF BORDEAUX;
S. R. E. PETER HECTOR COULLIÉ, CARDINAL PRIEST,
ARCHBISHOP OF LYONS;
S. R. E. JOSEPH WILLIAM LABOURÉ, CARDINAL PRIEST,
ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS;
AND TO ALL THE OTHER VENERABLE BRETHREN
ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS
AND TO EVERY CLERIC AND TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE

POPE PIUS X

Venerable brethren and beloved sons, health and apostolic
blessing.

That We are exceedingly concerned and in a certain
special way distressed with sorrow on your behalf, it
scarcely need be said; when that law was passed which,
because it violently divides the ancient obligation of
your state with the Apostolic See, then brings a truly
unworthy and miserable condition to the Church in France.
This gravest deed must be deplored by all good men
because of the harms it will bring into civil society,
as well as to religion.  Nevertheless, because We think
it has descended unexpectedly on no one who has truly paid
attention in these latter days, since the governors of the
republic have conducted themselves against the Church,
it is surely neither sudden nor new to you, venerable
brethren; you yourselves are witnesses that Christian
institutions have publicly received, from time to time,
so many and such great blows.  You have seen the sanctity
and stability of Christian marriage violated by the laws;
religion set aside from the public hospitals and schools;
clerics dragged out from their sacred discipline of studies
and virtues and forced to take up arms; religious orders
scattered and despoiled of their goods, and their members
generally reduced to poverty in all things.  You have known
also those decrees:  that the ancient custom of beginning
the meetings of legislators and judges by propitiating
God, or of dressing the ships in mourning in memory of
the death of Christ, be abolished; that the religious
form and type of swearing the oath be abolished; that
in trials, in gymnasiums, in the military both land and
sea, finally in everything related to the public power,
that nothing be or happen that might give any sign of
Christian profession.  Indeed, these and things of that
kind, since they have slowly separated the republic from
the Church, appear to have been nothing other than certain
steps purposely put forward to lead to the full separation
in its own law: that which the authors of these things have
not doubted to profess more than once and to bring before
all. — The Apostolic See, in order to oppose this great
evil as much as she had in her ability, brought together
everything against it.  For on one hand, she did not cease
to admonish and encourage the governors of France, again
and again to consider that this course of separation which
they were establishing, how great a heap of troubles would
follow; and on the other hand, she doubled the shining
proofs of her own indulgence and goodwill toward France;
trusting reasonably that those who were in charge could act
thus:  as if, by the injection of duty and the bonds
of grace, they might hold back from the slope, and finally
lead away from what they had begun.  — But efforts,
duties, and attempts of this kind, both Ours and of Our
Predecessor, We determined to have reversed nothing at all;
accordingly, the force unfriendly to religion, which for a
long time has striven against the rights of your Catholic
people and against the wills of right-thinking people,
has attacked.  In this time, therefore, so grave for the Church
that the consciousness of Our most holy office
commands Us, We take up the apostolic voice, and
open up Our mind and soul to you, venerable brethren;
all of whom, indeed, We are always accustomed to pursue
with a certain particular love; now indeed, as is just,
We embrace that love even more lovingly.

That matters of the state must be separated from
matters of the Church is a certainly most false and
greatly destructive opinion. — For first, since it
depends upon this foundation, that religion ought by no
agreement be a care for the state, it brings great injury
to God, Who Himself is the founder and keeper of human
society no less than of every man; and therefore, it is
necessary that he be worshipped not only privately, but
also publicly. — Then, it denies, openly, that
anything is supernatural.  And it measures the action of
the state solely by the prosperity of the mortal life,
in which the proximate cause of civil society consists;
it clearly neglects the last cause of citizens, which
is eternal beatitude given to man outside of this short
life, as foreign to the republic.  But on the contrary:
as the whole order of changing things is disposed for
obtaining that highest and absolute good, so truly it is
needful that the republic must not obstruct, but assist it.
— In addition, it overthrows the plan of human things
most wisely established by God, which certainly requires
the harmony of both societies, religious and civil.
For, because both, even if both are of their own type,
nevertheless exert rule in the same things, it becomes
necessary that causes will often appear between them,
the knowledge and judgment of which belongs to both.
And truly, unless the state joins together with the Church,
the seeds of strife, most bitter on both sides, will easily
arise from many causes; which will disturb the judgement of
truth with great worry of minds. — Finally, it will bring
the greatest harm to civil society itself; for that cannot
flourish and stand for long with religion unesteemed, which
religion is present as the supreme leader and teacher for
guarding, in a holy way, the rights and duties of man.

Therefore, the Roman pontiffs have not ceased to refute and
condemn opinions of this type, which relate to splitting the
republic from the Church, as often as the matter and the
time has brought them forth.  By name, Our illustrious
predecessor, Leo XIII, many times and splendidly set forth
how much the agreement of one society with the other there
ought to be, according to the principles of Christian
wisdom; among which: “And thus, a certain well-ordered
connection must pass between each power, which indeed is not
unjustly compared to the union through which the soul and
the body are connected in man.” And he adds:  “[S]tates
cannot, short of wickedness, bear themselves as if God is
altogether absent, or cast aside concern for religion as
alien and nothing useful… It is truly a great and pernicious
error to exclude the Church, which God Himself has
established, from the action of life, from the laws, from
the instruction of the youth, and from domestic
society.”^[_Immortale Dei_, 1 Nov 1885.]

Indeed, if any Christian state whatever, which separates and
removes the Church from itself, acts against every law and
right, it cannot be approved that *France* do this, for it
is permitted to it least of all!  We say that France, which this
Apostolic See has always loved for the long space of
centuries with a certain special and singular love; France,
whose entire fortune and the greatness of whose name and
glory had always been known for Christian religion and
humanity!  Fittingly said the same Pontiff:  “Let it be
remembered in France that its union with the Apostolic See,
by the will of the provident God, is closer and more ancient
than she can ever dare to dissolve.  For thence the truest
praises and the most distinguished splendors have proceeded…
certainly, to wish that this same necessity be disturbed, is
also truly to wish to take away from the authority and grace
of the French nation among peoples.”^[In alloc. ad peregr.
Gallos hab. 13 Apr 1888.]

And it approaches that the solemn faith of treaties
commanded that these highest bonds of necessity be even
more sacred.  Of course, a meeting of this sort
had intervened between the Apostolic See and the French
Republic, the obligation of which bound both sides; of
which type were those things which plainly were accustomed
to be legitimately agreed between states.  Why also the
Roman Pontiff and the governor of the French state bound
themselves and their successors by a solemn promise,
to remain firmly in those things which were agreed.
Therefore, it followed that this agreement, by the same
law, and others which have been made between states, would
be ruled by the law of nations; and therefore it can by
no means be dissolved by either of the parties who agreed
upon it.  And no prudent man of his own judgment will
deny that the Apostolic See stood by its conditions with
the greatest faithfulness, and claimed at every time that
the state with the same faithfulness stand by the same.
But behold, the Republic annulled the solemn and legitimate
agreement by only its own judgment; and it weighed nothing
at all from the violation of the reverence of treaties,
while it loosed itself from the embrace and friendship
of the Church, gave manifest injury to the Apostolic
See, broke the law of nations, and gravely shook social
and political discipline itself; since nothing in human
intimacy and society is so concerned for safely setting
forth the mutual causes of peoples, as that public treaties
be kept sacred and inviolate.

And to the greatness of the injury which the Apostolic See
has received, it is proven to be the not-minor attack made,
if the method is examined, in which way the Republic broke
up the agreement.  It is similarly established in the law of
nations and placed among the customs of civil institutions,
that it has not been permitted that agreements between
states be dissolved, before one state, that wishes it,
legitimately gives notice to the other that it wishes it,
clearly and openly.  And truly, here not only no lawful
notice, but indeed no signal at all, came before the
Apostolic See.  Thus, the governors of France did not doubt
to forsake the common duties of civility against the
Apostolic See, which are accustomed to be furnished to even
the smallest state and that of the least importance; nor
did the same ones fear to look down on the dignity and power
of the Pope, the supreme head of the Catholic Church,
although they bear the character of a Catholic nation; which
power, indeed, should be shown greater respect by them than
any civil power was asking, because it looks to the eternal
good of souls, nor is it limited to any boundaries of place.

But already, by those considering that law which has
been promulgated in itself, a cause of a new and graver
grievance has been born, for Us and for many.  In the
beginning the Republic, since it withdrew from the bonds of
the agreement having been placed by the Church, accordingly
it should also give her leave and permit her to enjoy her
common rights in freedom.  But nothing of this least was
done; for here We see many things established which, by
imposing a hateful privilege on the Church, they gather her
to be under the civil rule.  We, indeed, bear it gravely and
troublingly, that by these laws the civil power has invaded
into those matters the judgment and mastery of which belong
to the one sacred power; and then We grieve even more
that these same laws, forgetting equity and justice, have
thrown the French Church into a most hard and troublesome
condition, and one very opposed to her sacred rights.

For the decrees of this law first offend the establishment
itself by which Christ formed the Church.  For the Scripture
tells us, and the teaching handed down by the Fathers
confirms, that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ,
administered by the authority of *shepherds* and
*teachers*^[Eph4:11 et seq.]; that it is a society of men,
in which some preside over others with a full and complete
power of ruling, teaching, and judging.^[Mt28:18–20,
16:18–19, 18:18; Tit2:15; 2Cor10:6, 13:10, ad elsewhere.]
This society is, therefore, *unequal* in both its power and
its nature; of course, it embraces within itself a twofold
order of persons, shepherds and flock; that is, those who
are placed in the different levels of the hierarchy, and the
multitude of the faithful; and these orders are thus
distinct among themselves, so that in the hierarchy alone is
the right and authority of moving and directing its
associates to the intended end for the society; and the duty
of the multitude is to suffer itself to be governed, and to
obediently follow the leadership of the rulers.  Famously,
so said Cyprian the Martyr:  “Our Lord, Whose commands we
ought to fear and keep, setting out the honor of the bishop
and the cause of His Church, spoke in the Gospel and said to
Peter:  *And I say to thee: That thou art Peter*, etc.
Thence, the order and reason of the Church has run that
through the changes of times and successions of bishops,
that the Church might be founded upon bishops, and every act
of the Church may be governed through the same overseers”;
that is, he said, “founded in the divine law.”^[St. Cyprian,
Letter 33 (a. 27, ad lapsos), n. 1.]  Against these things,
by the precept of this law, the management and
protection of public worship is not left to the hierarchy
divinely established, but it is brought back to a certain
group of citizens, to which indeed the form and purpose of a
legitimate person is imposed, and which alone has to
instruct in civil rights and to bind in civil obligations in
every type of religious worship.  Therefore, to this group
pertains 
the use of the sacred temples and buildings, and the
possession of movable and solid ecclesiastical properties;
to it is permitted, although for a time, free
judgment concerning the buildings of the bishops, of the
priests, of the seminaries; theirs it is to manage the
goods, to collect the offerings, to procure the money and
bequests, in the cause of sacred things.  About the
hierarchy, it is truly silent.  Indeed, it establishes that
these groups are so brought about that to an extent its own
discipline and sense of religious worship, for the sake of
which they have been established, is wanting; nevertheless
it is careful that if by some chance a controvery concerning
these things should arise, that it alone may judge
concerning it in view of the *counsel of the state*.  It is
clear, therefore, that these groups are liable precisely to
the civil power, that nothing may be left concerning them to
the ecclesiastical authority of the place.  No one can fail
to see how greatly all these things are foreign to the
dignity of the Church, contrary to her rights and divine
constitution; even more, the law on this point is written
not in certain and definite formulas, but truly in ones so
vague as to be broadly open, so that worse than the law must
be feared from its interpretation.

Besides, nothing could be more hostile to the liberty of the
Church than this law.  — And indeed, if the sacred
magistrates are prohibited to exercise the full power of
their own office because of the interposed groups of which
We have spoken; if the highest authority in these groups is
claimed by the *counsel of state*, and they are commanded to
bear themselves by establishments most unconnected to the
common right, that thus they may wish it difficult to grow
together, and more difficult to stand together; if the given
power of exercising divine worship is diminished by manifold
exceptions; if the guarding of the temples, having been torn
from the work and watchfulness of the Church, is assigned to
the Republic; the office of the Church of preaching about
the faith and the sanctity of morals is restrained, and very
severe penalties are imposed on clerics; if these and
similar things are ratified, for what more can the desire of
interpreting it be, what is here done, but that the Church
be placed in a humiliating and abject condition, and that
the most sacred right of peaceable citizens, which indeed is
much the greatest part of France, of professing their
religion as they wish, be violated through a show of
preserving public order?  Nevertheless, the state, by
suppressing divine worship alone, by which it defines the
whole strength and purpose of religion, wounds the Church;
either by blocking off access to her and to her generous
virtue, or by in many ways disabling her action.  Therefore,
it had not enough, among other things, to remove the
religious orders, which in the performance of their sacred
ministry have provided distinguished helps for the Church in
their establishment and education of the youth, and by
obtaining Christian kindness; for it has overturned by human
powers that which is, by human powers, a certain necessary
help for the life and duty of the Church.

Reasonably, to those things which We have bewailed as
harmful and injurious, this approaches, that the law of
separation diminishes and violates the right of the Church
of having her own property.  And also it disturbs a large
part of the Church in the possession of inheritence and of
the most proven titles, with justice loudly protesting;
whatever may be established rightly for the consolation of
the dead, by money devoted or appointed for divine worship,
it takes away and orders that it be held as invalid; those
faculties which the liberality of Catholics fix for
supporting Christian schools and various establishments of
Christian kindness, it converts to arrangements of laity,
where generally one seeks the remnants of the Catholic
religion in vain; in which, indeed, it is clear that,
together with the rights of the Church, one opens the
testaments and wills of the authors to be overturned.  What,
truly, one proclaims through the greatest injury, in which
buildings the Church was using before entering the
agreement, afterwords these will be the state's, or the
province's, or the city's; is a unique concern for Us.  For
if the use of the temples for exercising divine worship is
given by these groups, as We see, it is reliquished neither
freely nor definitely, but it is a concession so diminished
by so many exceptions, that in truth the judgment of the
temples belongs entirely to the civil authority.  Therefore,
We exceedingly fear for the sanctity of the temples; for
neither do We judge the danger to be absent, that these
august houses of the divine majesty and these places so dear
to the memory and religion of the French, will be taken away
into profane hands and defiled by profane rites.  But in
this, because the law releases the Republic from the duty of
supplying the yearly needs of the sacred things, it strikes
against justice as well as against the binding faith of
solemn agreement.  For there is no doubt that these
monuments of their deeds testify, that the French Republic,
since it took upon itself by agreed treaty the burden of
providing clergy what they need to make a decent living, and
to care for the public dignity of religion, that it was not
done for the sake of politeness and kindness; truly, the
Church has publicly suffered in recent times the plundering
of her goods, albeit in some part made good.  Similarly, by
the same agreement, since the Pope, according to the
ageement, has agreed that he and his successors would show
no trouble to them to whom the stolen goods of the Church
were given, under that condition that he agrees to receive,
forever, from the Republic itself, a decree for the upkeep
of both honest clerics and divine worship.

Finally, lest We be silent about this, this coming law,
besides the property of the Church, even does significant
harm to your state.  For there can be no doubt how much
chance will be had for the shaking of the union and joining
of minds, which if it be wanting, no state can stand or
thrive; and which, in these greatest times of Europe,
whoever is a good man in France and truly loving his
fatherland, ought to wish safe and unharmed.  We indeed, by
the example of Our Predecessor, from whom We receive an
inheritance of searching out an extraordinary love toward
your nation, because We have leaned upon the integrity of
the laws among you to protect the ancestral religion, We
have always seen and tried at the same time to strengthen
your common peace and agreement of all, of which there is no
tighter bond than religion.  Wherefore, We cannot understand
without great distress that she has accomplished by public
authority a thing which, by adding torches of deadly tension to the
passions of the people stirred up about religious things,
seems able to utterly disturb the state.

Therefore, remembering Our apostolic office, by which We
ought to defend and preserve the sacred rights of the Church
whole from any attack whatsoever, We, through the supreme
power which We divinely receive, reject and condemn the
proposed law which separates the French Republic from the
Church; and We set this forth for the following causes:
that it affects with great injustice God, Whom it solemnly
abjures, declaring in the beginning that the Republic is
free from the worship of any religion whatever; that it
violates the law of nature and of nations, and the public
faith in treaties; that it is opposed to the divine
establishment, the inmost causes, and the liberty of the
Church; that it overturns justice, by oppressing the right
of ownership legitimately obtained by manifold title and
convention itself; that it gravely offends the dignity of
the Apostolic See and Our person, the order of bishops, the
clergy, and French Catholics.  Furthermore, We most
vigorously object concerning the measure, passing, and
promulgation of this same law; and in this We testify that
nothing important whatever be advanced for the weakening of
the rights of the Church, by no strength and daring
inconstancy of men.

We have had to pronounce this, a condemnation of this deed,
venerable brethren, for you, for the French people, and for
the entirety of the Christian name.  — Indeed, as We said,
We are moved most troublingly, foreseeing the evils which
hang over this beloved nation because of this law; and We
are greatly moved by the sadness, distress, and labors of
every type in which We discern that you, venerable brethren,
and your clergy will be placed.  Nevertheless, the thought
of divine kindness and providence forbids that We suffer
Ourselves to be afflicted and broken by these many concerns,
and the most examined hope is never absent, that Jesus
Christ has fixed His Church in His power and presence.  And
so, let it be far from Us, that We fear anything for the
cause of the Church.  She is divine in the constancy and
stability of her strength, and this is known enough in the
experience of so many centuries.  For no one does not know,
that many and serious rough things in this length of time
have lied upon her; and, when it has been necessary that no
greater than human strength fail, that the Church has always
risen thence stronger and greater.  And concerning laws
founded for the ruin of the Church, by the testimony of
history, We know that what hatred has kindled, prudence will
extinguish afterwards, insofar as it is found to be harmful
to the state; and it has indeed happened in France in
not-too-ancient memory.  What mark of greater examples, if
only they could lead the mind to follow; and maturely they
will restore religion, the originator of humanity, the
patroness of public prosperity, to the possession of her
own dignity and freedom, to the good applause of all.

Meanwhile, however, while the desire of oppressing and
driving out controls, the sons of the Church, as elsewhere
and always, must, *put[ting] on the armour of
light*^[Rom13:12.], struggle for truth and justice with all
the might they can.  In which you, venerable brethren,
teachers and authors of others, certainly will surpass them
with eagerness of study, watchfulness, and constancy, which
is the ancient and much-observed praise of the bishops of
France.  But We wish you to more powerfully study this,
because it greatly secures the matter, that it might be the
highest agreement of propositions and counsels of all in the
defense of the matters of the Church.  Indeed, to Us it is
certain and determined, by what norm We think that this work
must be directed in these difficult times, and to suitably
order it to you; neither can it be doubted that you will
most diligently execute Our commands.  Go on again, then, as
you have established, and therefore also more zealously, to
strengthen the common piety; to promote instruction in
Christian doctrine and to make it more widespread; to
prosecute the fallacies of errors and alluring corruption of
whatever type, so broadly spread out today, from reaching
your flock; to be present to that flock for teaching,
warning, exhorting, consoling, and finally to bring together
all the duties of pastoral love. — Nor, indeed, will your
clergy fail to be present for you, taking pains, most
actively to be your helpers; whom indeed, We have known to
be eager and quick, overflowing with piety, with learning,
with obedience toward the Apostolic See in outstanding
strength, to give themselves up totally to you for the
Church and the eternal salvation of souls.  And certainly,
they who are of this order, let them feel in this storm just
as they must be refreshed as We hear the Apostles were:
“*rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer
reproach for the name of Jesus*.”^[Act5:41.]  Thus they will
bravely vindicate the rights and liberty of the Church, even
against anybody, from every far-off severity; and why not,
indeed, remembering in love, that it is fitting that the
ministers of Christ in the first place think of injury before
justice, obstinacy before lenience, mistreatment before
kindness.

And still We address you, however many Catholics are in
France:  and may Our voice be a comfort for you, with the
testimony of the extravagant kindness by which We have not
ceased to love your people, even in the most calamitous
things which threaten. — You have known that the deformed
sects of men have determined that they, having been placed
upon your necks, indeed have given notice with an open
boldness that they wish to destroy the Catholic name in
France.  Truly, they strain to drag the faith out of your
souls by the roots, which, for your fathers and great ones,
bore the glory, prosperity, and revered greatness of the
fatherland; which provides a consolation for your labors;
protects peace and domestic calm; fortifies the way to
gaining happiness which will remain without end.  In the
defense of this faith, of course, you think that you must
press on with the greatest strength; but know this: you
labor in an empty struggle, if you struggle to repulse the
hostile attacks with disjointed strengths.  Throw away,
therefore, the seeds of discord, if any are settled among
you, and do the work, that you all may be joined together in
combination of wills and likeness of action, as much as it
is fitting that men, by whom one and the same cause is
fought for, should be; and that cause, for which no one
ought to be reluctant, if the work were done, to make any
sacrifice of private judgment.  — May you give exceedingly
great example of generous virtue, if, as much as is in you,
you wish as is your duty, to deliver your ancestral religion
from its present crisis; in which, kindly working with the
ministers of God, you may unite the divine kindness to
yourselves in a special way.

But to you, for worthily receiving, and rightly and usefully
supporting, the protection of religion, We think that to be
best:  that you yourselves be conformed to the precepts of
Christian wisdom to such a degree that Catholic profession
shines forth from your customs and all your lives; and to
hold closely with them to whom the management of religion is
proper, with the priests, of course, and with your bishops,
and, because it is their head, with this Apostolic See, in
which, as in a center, the faith of Catholic and suitable
action of faith focuses.  Thus, therefore, prepared and
instructed, approach confidently into this fight for the
Church; but see to it that the whole basis of your
confidence lies in God, in whose cause you are acting; cease
not, therefore, to implore the advantage of His help.  We,
truly, as long as you must be so tested, turn with you,
present in thought and mind, participants in labors, in
cares, and in sorrows; likewise, We pursue in prayer and
humble entreaties, begging before the Author and Upholder
of the Church, that He look with mercy upon France, and lead
her back to tranquillity, quickly delivering her from such
waves, by the prayer of Mary Immaculate.

As a sign of the divine offices and a witness especially of
Our kindness, We lovingly bestow upon you, venerable
brethren and beloved sons, the apostolic blessing.

Given at Rome before Saint Peter, the 21st day of February
in the year 1906, the third of Our pontificate.

POPE PIUS X


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