APPENDIX VII.
Pius XI.'s Encyclical on Church Union, Mortalium animos, Jan. 6, 1928.
[Pius XI.'s bull was intended to be the papal ultimatum on federation between the Protestant and Roman Catholic communions or their organic union. It explicitly reaffirms the distinctive dogmas which were fully developed in the Middle Ages and justified the split of Western Christendom in the sixteenth century. It repudiates the idea that there can be dealings between parts of the Christian family--so called--as between equals, insists that submission to the pope as Christ's vicar is the only method which can be tolerated by the Roman body, and demands from Protestants unconditional surrender and a confession of repentance for the so-called revolt from the 'Holy Father in Rome.' If they return, they must return as prodigal children. Such submission is the condition of being 'in the Church' and 'whosoever,' so the pronouncement runs, 'is outside the Catholic Church [meaning the R. C. Ch.] is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation.' The occasion of Pius's deliverance was the effort to bring the Church of England and the Roman Church into some accord, made in 'the conversations' held in Malines, Belgium, from 1921 to 1925 between Dr. Armitage Robinson, Bishops Frere and Gore, Dr. Kidd, and Lord Halifax, Anglicans, and Cardinal Mercier, and the invitation given to the Roman pontiff to join in the Christian conference in Lausanne, 1927. Card. Mercier died June 23, 1926. The temper of the Anglo-Catholics towards the conversations was shown by the message sent by a largely attended conference held in Albert Hall, July 13, 1923, through its chairman, the Bishop of Zanzibar, conveying 'the greetings of 16,000 Anglo-Catholics assembled in congress to the Holy Father, humbly praying that the day of peace may quickly break.' When, 1924, Cardinal Mercier in a letter to his clergy set forth the nature of the conversations, loud protests were made in England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury publicly stated, 1924, that 'the group' attending the meetings in Malines had 'no official standing. He had received the Anglican members and had proposed Drs. Gore and Kidd for the group, but had gone no further.' The conferences, he stated, were 'informal and private conversations with nothing of the nature of negotiations,' and that one of the first steps in the direction of the end proposed was to call for 'a repudiation of the Declaration against Anglican orders.' See London Times, February 7, 1924; The Conversations at Malines, 1921-25, Oxford, 1928; H. Wilson, Life of Cardinal Mercier, London, 1928, 391 pp.--Bell: Documents on Christian Unity, II., 32-64.
After referring to the extraordinary efforts being made among the nations to establish peace and fraternal relations among themselves, the document notes that 'a similar result was being aimed at by some in those matters which concern the New Law promulgated by Christ, our Lord,' large conventions being held to promote this object in which 'both infidels of every kind and true Christians--Christifideles--and even those who have fallen away from Christ or who with obstinacy deny his divine nature join in agreement.' [400] Such movements, the pontiff declared, may in no wise be approved by Catholics, based as they are on the false notion that all religions are more or less worthy. Catholics, in favoring such movements, abandon the divinely revealed religion, being easily deceived with the idea that by their actions outward good may come, inasmuch as the question concerned is unity among Christians. From this point the 'Encyclical Letter of our Most Holy Lord Pius XI. by divine Providence Pope' goes on:]
Is it not proper, so it is often repeated, yea even consonant with duty, that all who invoke Christ's name should abstain from mutual criminations and at last be joined in mutual love? Who would dare to say that he loves Christ who desires not to carry out with all his strength the wishes of him who begged his Father that his disciples might be one--John xvii, 21? And did not the same Christ will that his disciples should be stamped and distinguished from the rest by this that they love one another--'By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another,' John xiii, 35. Indeed, they add that all Christians should be as 'one,' for if they were, they would be much more efficient in driving out the pest of irreligion which like a cancer daily creeps on and on and becomes more and more widely spread, weakening the Gospel. These things and others that class--genus--of men, who are called pan-Christians, continually and boastfully assert and these men unfortunately, far from being quite few and scattered, have grown to be veritable troops and have grouped themselves into societies widely diffused which, for the most part, are controlled by non-Catholics although among themselves they hold various opinions in the things of the faith. This movement is so actively promoted as in many places to win for itself the assent of the citizens and even to ensnare the minds of very many Catholics with the hope of bringing about such a union as might appear to be agreeable to the wish of Holy Mother Church who has nothing more fully at heart than to call back her erring sons and lead them to her bosom. However, in reality there lies hidden beneath these enticements and charms of words the gravest error, an error by which the very foundation of the Catholic faith is torn asunder.
Therefore, admonished by the obligation--conscientia--of our apostolic office, not to let the flock of the Lord be misled by pernicious fallacies, We invoke, Venerable Brethren, your zeal in guarding against this evil, for We are sure that by your writings and words the people will most easily get to know and understand those principles and considerations which we are about to lay down and from which Catholics will learn what they are to think and how to act when the question arises concerning those undertakings--inceptis--which look towards the coalescence in one body of all those who are properly called Christians.
We were created by God, the Creator of all things, in order that we might know and serve Him so that our Author has the full right to be served by us. God might have prescribed for man's government the law of nature alone which at creation He imprinted in man's soul and commanded additions to that same law by His ordinary providence, but He preferred to offer precepts for us to obey, and as time went on, that is from the beginnings of the human race to the advent and preaching of Jesus Christ, He himself taught man duties which a rational creature owes to him, the Creator,--'At sundry times and in divers manners, God, who spoke in time past unto the Fathers in the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in His Son.' Heb. i, 1. >From this it follows that there can be no true religion, other than that which is founded on the revealed Word of God; which revelation, as begun at the beginning and continued under the Old Law, Christ Jesus himself under the New Law perfected. Now, if God has spoken (and it is historically certain that He has truly spoken), there is no one who does not see that it is man's duty to believe absolutely God's revelation and to obey implicitly His commands. And, that we might rightly do both, for the glory of God and our own salvation, the only begotten Son of God founded his Church on earth. Further, We believe that those who call themselves Christians can do no other than believe that a Church--the one Church--was established by Christ; but, if it is further asked what must of necessity be its nature according to the will of its Author, there all do not agree. A large number of these, for example, deny that the Church of Christ must be visible and manifest, [401] at least to such a degree that it appear as one body of the faithful, agreeing in one and the same doctrine under one teaching authority--magisterium--and government; on the contrary, they understand a visible Church as nothing else than a Federation--foedus--composed of various communities of Christians, even though they hold different doctrines, which may even be in conflict one with the other. But Christ our Lord instituted his Church as a perfect society, with external qualities and perceptible to the senses which should carry on to later time the work of saving the human race, under the leadership of one head,--Matt, xvi, 18; Luke xxii, 32; John xxi, 15-17--with the authority of teaching by word of mouth,--Matt, xvi, 15--and by the ministry of the sacraments, the fonts of heavenly grace,--John iii, 5; vi, 48-50; xx, 22. Cp. Matt, xvi, 18, etc. For which reason he asserted, by way of comparison, the similarity of the Church to a kingdom, a house, a sheepfold, and a flock--Cp. Matt, xvi, 18; John x, 16; xxi, 15-17. And the Church, after being so wonderfully instituted by its Founder and his Apostles,--who were the leaders in propagating it,--when they were being removed by death, could not be entirely extinguished and cease to be, for to it was given the commandment to lead all men without distinction of time or place to eternal salvation: Going, therefore, teach ye all nations, Matt, xxviii, 19. In the continual carrying-out of this task, will any element of strength and efficiency be wanting to the Church, when Christ himself is perpetually present with us, as he solemnly promised, Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world--Matt, xxviii, 20? It follows, then, that the Church of Christ not only exists today and has always existed, but is also exactly the same as it was in the Apostolic Age, unless we chose to say,--which God forbid,--either that Christ our Lord could not effect his purpose, or that he erred when he asserted that the gates of hell should never prevail against her. Matt, xvi, 18.
And, at this place, it seems opportune to explain and to remove that false opinion on which the whole case seems to hang and from which also that multiple action and combination--actio et conspiratio multiplex--of the non-Catholics seem to proceed which, as We have said, are designed to bring about the union of Christian churches into one society. For, it is to be noted, that the originators of this purpose--consilii--are forever accustomed to adduce Christ and his words: That they all may be one.... And there shall be one fold and one shepherd, John xvii, 21; x, 16, wishing to get from these words that they signify a desire and prayer of Christ Jesus which up to this time have not been fulfilled. For they are of the mind that the unity of faith and government--a note of the one true Church of Christ--has heretofore hardly ever existed and does not exist today; and that it is to be wished for and perchance some day will by a common bent of wills be secured but that in the meantime it is to be held as an ideal. They add that the Church of herself or by her very nature is divided into parts, that is, made up of a number of churches or separate communities which up to this have been distinct and which, although they have in common some articles of doctrine, are nevertheless at discord in regard to the rest. And, they are of the mind that each one of them properly enjoys the same rights and that, at best, the Church was unique and one from the time of the Apostles down to the oecumenical councils. Therefore, so they say, controversies and ancient differences of opinion, which to this day have divided the Christian name, should be renounced and set aside and some common rule of belief concerning the other doctrines be wrought out and laid down so that in the profession of that faith, they will not only know themselves to be brothers but feel themselves such; and, that the many separate churches or associations--communitates--if joined as it were in one universal federation--foedus--would then be in a condition to oppose vigorously and fruitfully the advances of irreligion. These things, Venerable Brethren, are what is said by them in common. There are indeed, some who affirm and acknowledge that Protestantism, as they call it, with much lack of consideration discarded certain articles of faith and a number of external rites of worship which are most pleasing and useful and which, on the other hand, to this day the Roman Church retains. But they go on to declare that this very Church showed herself rash in corrupting the original religion by adding certain doctrines not only foreign to the Gospel but repugnant to it and offering them to be believed. As the chief of these, they enumerate the jurisdiction of the Primacy appointed to Peter and his successors in the Roman See. Likewise, in their number,--although the number is not so large,--there are those who grant to the Roman Pontiff either a Primacy of honor and jurisdiction of a certain authority--potestatem--which, however, they assert comes not by divine right--a jure divino--but from a certain consent of the faithful. And others there are who even go so far as to wish the Pontiff himself to preside over their varicolored meetings--conventibus. And, further, although many non-Catholics may be found who preach loudly fraternal communion in Christ Jesus, you will find that none of them have reached down to the thought of subjecting themselves to the Vicar of Jesus Christ and obeying him either as teacher or ruler. At the same time, they affirm, that on common terms, that is freely as equals with equals, they would deal with the Roman Church; but, if they were to deal in this wise, it does not seem open to doubt that they would so treat the idea, that in the league--pactem--so vigorously entered into, they would not recede from those opinions which heretofore have been the cause that they have strayed and wandered outside Christ's only sheepfold--unicum ovile.