Bl. Pope Pius IX, ora pro nobis
Allocution of the Supreme Pontiff Pope Pius IX
For a long time, we have seen, Venerable Brothers, what a miserable conflict civil society is agitated by, especially in these unhappy times of ours, due to the war raging between truth and error, virtue and vice, light and darkness. In fact, some on the one hand support some maxims of, as they call it, modern civilization; and others on the other advocate the rights of justice and our holy Religion. The former ask that the Roman Pontiff reconcile and make peace with Progress, with Liberalism, as they say, and with today's civilization. The latter rightly ask that the immovable and unshakable principles of eternal justice be kept inviolate and intact; and may the healing virtue of our divine Religion be preserved unharmed, which propagates the glory of God, provides an appropriate remedy for the many evils that afflict the human race, and is the sole and true norm by which the children of men, after having been educated in every virtue in this mortal life, they are led to the port of eternal bliss.
But the patrons of today's civilization do not consent to this difference, since they proclaim themselves true and sincere friends of Religion. We would certainly like to believe them, if the very sad facts, which are there for all to see, did not fully demonstrate the opposite. To be sure, there is only one true and holy Religion throughout the earth, founded and instituted by Christ himself, Our Lord; she, fruitful mother and nurturer of every virtue, dispeller of vices, liberator of souls, indicator of true happiness, is called Catholic, Apostolic, Roman. We have already declared another time what should be thought of those who live outside this ark of salvation in Our Consistorial Address of 9 December 1854; here we confirm the same doctrine. Therefore we ask those who invite us to extend a friendly hand to today's civilization, whether the facts are such as to be able to induce the Vicar of Christ on earth, divinely established by Christ Himself to defend the purity of His celestial doctrine and feed the lambs and sheep, confirming both in it; we ask whether the facts can induce him, without the gravest fault of conscience and without the greatest scandal for all good people, to associate himself with the aforementioned modern civilization, through whose work such great and never sufficiently deplored evils occur, so many horrible opinions are promulgated and many errors and false principles completely opposed to the Catholic religion and its doctrine. Nor is anyone unaware that among these deeds is the total destruction of the same solemn concordats, formally made between this Apostolic See and the royal Sovereigns, as recently happened in Naples. Of which We, in this very large Assembly of yours, with all the strength of Our spirit We lament, Venerable Brothers, and above all we protest in the same way in which on other occasions we have cry out against similar attacks and violations.
Translated from the Italian at www.vatican.va
