On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception in the year 1864, Pope Pius IX promulgated the Encyclical Quanta Cura, with the famous Syllabus of Errors provided as an appendix.
In the opening paragraph of the Encyclical, the Holy Father stated his intent to set about, after the manner of his predecessors, “unveiling and condemning all those heresies and errors which are averse to our Divine Faith.”
NB: Addressed in this letter are not dangers of merely passing concern, as if changing circumstances might one day render them harmless. Rather, as the Holy Father makes perfectly plain at the outset, he is about to condemn poisonous doctrines that directly oppose the “Divine Faith,” which, of course, is immutable.
Chief among the “deceptive opinions” addressed by Pope Pius IX is the notion that “the best constitution of public society” is that it should “be conducted and governed … without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.”
The Holy Father went on to declare that it is “against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers” to assert that society is best served when “no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.”
NB: The Holy Father is letting it be known that the false opinion being condemned opposes that which the Church teaches infallibly via the universal ordinary magisterium (“the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers”).
He then cited the condemnation that was issued by his predecessor some three decades earlier in the Encyclical, Mirari Vos:
From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an “insanity,” viz., that “liberty of conscience and worship is each man’s personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society.
Pope Pius IX went on to further demonstrate the constancy of his teaching by quoting St. Augustine, who called the supposed right to liberty of worship a “liberty of perdition,” stating that such is made known “from the very teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Holy Father left absolutely no room for confusion as to the solemn obligation of every Catholic to assent to the teaching set forth in his Encyclical Letter:
Therefore, by our Apostolic authority, we reprobate, proscribe, and condemn all the singular and evil opinions and doctrines severally mentioned in this letter, and will and command that they be thoroughly held by all children of the Catholic Church as reprobated, proscribed and condemned.
How do the “evil opinions and doctrines” reprobated, proscribed, and condemned in Quanta Cura compare with the propositions set forth in the Declaration on Religious Liberty of Vatican Council II?
Short answer: They are the same. In fact, many leaders of the resist-the-pope movement plainly acknowledge as much, even as they refuse to draw the unavoidable conclusions that result therefrom.
For those unsure as to how blatantly the Council taught the very errors specifically condemned by Pope Pius IX (and others), the following graphic provides a brief side-by-side comparison.
(For a more in depth treatment of the content of Dignitatis Humanae, see HERE)
As the citations provided from Quanta Cura make plain, the Holy Roman Catholic Church simply cannot change course on this topic.
Why? Because it pertains to the Divine Faith, that is, Revelation and Tradition.
Furthermore, given that it so obviously erred in its teaching on religious liberty, we can be certain that the Second Vatican Council does not belong to the one true Church of Christ for the following reason:
Since the bishops are infallible in their corporate capacity only, individual bishops may err at any time in regard to faith and morals, but all cannot fall into the same error at the same time. (Rev. E. Sylvester Berry, The Church of Christ : An Apologetic and Dogmatic Treatise, pg. 469)
“All cannot fall” in this case means a moral unanimity of the bishops, but this is exactly what happened at Vatican II. This alone proves beyond any doubt whatsoever that the Council is not the act of the Supreme Magisterium of the Catholic Church that it claims to be – the same that every putative pope ever since has insisted that it is.
Even so, some will argue:
Yes, but the Council’s teaching on religious liberty isn’t infallible! As such, I can and do reject it!
Sorry, folks, that dog won’t hunt for a number of reasons. For one, and chief among them, the Council labored to present its teaching on religious liberty as a theological conclusion, which just so happens to be a secondary object of infallibility, the truth of which is guaranteed. This doctrine – if in fact it had come from the Church – would most certainly be binding upon all the faithful. (See two-part article HERE)
In short, while the present crisis gives rise to questions for which no one has a definitive answer, there are certain aspects of the matter that are crystal clear, including the fact that the Vatican II version of religious liberty is a heresy long since condemned by the popes, by Scripture, and Tradition in a most unambiguous and solemn manner.
The information in this essay alone is all that a moderately intelligent sincere seeker of Catholic truth should ever need in order to safely conclude that neither the Second Vatican Council, the conciliar church that it established, nor the men-in-white who have reigned atop of it are what they claim to be.
So, one wonders, why do so many refuse to connect the dots?
