It has been said, by no less a person than Joseph, Cardinal Ratzinger, the erstwhile Pope Benedict XVI, that the Decrees of the Second Œcumenical Council of the Vatican are a 'Counter-Syllabus'.
'If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of counter syllabus.' Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, 1987.For those unfamiliar with the Syllabus, it is the Syllabus Errorum, issued by Blessed Pope Pius XI, as an annex to the Encyclical Quanta cura. It condemned a total of 80 heresies, and through that promulgated Catholic Church teaching on a number of philosophical and political questions referring to documents issued previously. The syllabus itself was an attack on liberalism, modernism, moral relativism, secularisation, and the political emancipation of Europe from the tradition of Catholic monarchies.
In a very real sense, the Syllabus is a ringing denunciation of the Revolution in all its forms both in the State and in the Church. It was followed by the Encyclical Etsi Multa, On the Church in Italy, Germany and Switzerland, denouncing similar anti-Catholic heresies in those thee States.
I have appended a link at the bottom of this post to the Syllabus for those who would like to read it.
"If, snatching away the mask of the Revolution, you asked her, "Who are you?", she would say to you: "I am not what they believe I am. Many speak of me, yet very few know me. I am not... riots roaring in the streets, nor the change from the monarchy to a republic, nor the substitution of one royal dynasty for another, nor a temporary disturbance in public order. I am not the howls of the Jacobins nor the furies of the Mountain, nor the fighting on the barricades, nor the pillaging, nor the arson, nor the agrarian law, nor the guillotine, nor the drownings.
I am not Marat, nor Robespierre, nor Babeuf, nor Mazzini, nor Kossuth. These men are my sons - they are not me. These things are my works - they are not me. These men and these things are transitory things, and I am a permanent condition.
"I am the hatred of every religious and social order which Man has not established and in which he is not king and God together; I am the proclamation of the rights of man against the rights of God. I am the philosophy of rebellion, the politics of rebellion, the religion of rebellion; I am armed nihilism; I am the founding of the religious and social state on the will of Man in place of the will of God!
In a word, I am anarchy, for I am God dethroned and Man put in his place. This is why I am called Revolution: it means reversal, because I put on high that which should be low according to the eternal laws, and I put low what should be on high."
Msgr Jean-Joseph Gaume
For those reading the Syllabus for the first time, it is absolutely vital to remember that these are condemned positions, thus each proposition must be read as 'It is condemned that...', or 'It is not true that...'.
The Syllabus Errorum of Blessed Pope Pius IX
Fr John Hardon, S.J., in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, defines the Syllabus thus (my emphasis),
SYLLABUS OF PIUS IX. A series of eighty condemned propositions listing the prevalent errors that aimed at the undermining of society, morality, and religion. Every Catholic is expected to give exterior and interior assent to the condemnation of errors expressed in this syllabus.
Fr Hardon's Dictionary was published in 1980 and bears a post-Conciliar Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. The nihil obstat is an official declaration that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error, after being reviewed by a learned theologian appointed by the Ordinary granting the imprimatur, so it cannot be argued that Father's work is outdated, or opposed to the Faith.
I have often said that I oppose the Revolution in all its forms, the protestant Deformation, the Endarkenment, 1689, 1776, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1905, and 1917, individualist and collectivist, Black, Brown, Red, and Green, modernist and liberal, in both the Church and the State. I totally agree with the quote following as to what the Revolution is-
I have often said that I oppose the Revolution in all its forms, the protestant Deformation, the Endarkenment, 1689, 1776, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1905, and 1917, individualist and collectivist, Black, Brown, Red, and Green, modernist and liberal, in both the Church and the State. I totally agree with the quote following as to what the Revolution is-
"If, snatching away the mask of the Revolution, you asked her, "Who are you?", she would say to you: "I am not what they believe I am. Many speak of me, yet very few know me. I am not... riots roaring in the streets, nor the change from the monarchy to a republic, nor the substitution of one royal dynasty for another, nor a temporary disturbance in public order. I am not the howls of the Jacobins nor the furies of the Mountain, nor the fighting on the barricades, nor the pillaging, nor the arson, nor the agrarian law, nor the guillotine, nor the drownings.
I am not Marat, nor Robespierre, nor Babeuf, nor Mazzini, nor Kossuth. These men are my sons - they are not me. These things are my works - they are not me. These men and these things are transitory things, and I am a permanent condition.
"I am the hatred of every religious and social order which Man has not established and in which he is not king and God together; I am the proclamation of the rights of man against the rights of God. I am the philosophy of rebellion, the politics of rebellion, the religion of rebellion; I am armed nihilism; I am the founding of the religious and social state on the will of Man in place of the will of God!
In a word, I am anarchy, for I am God dethroned and Man put in his place. This is why I am called Revolution: it means reversal, because I put on high that which should be low according to the eternal laws, and I put low what should be on high."
Msgr Jean-Joseph Gaume
For those reading the Syllabus for the first time, it is absolutely vital to remember that these are condemned positions, thus each proposition must be read as 'It is condemned that...', or 'It is not true that...'.
The Syllabus Errorum of Blessed Pope Pius IX
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