Pius X

“ And rebels, indeed, they are, those who profess and spread abroad under artful forms monstrous errors on the evolution of dogma; on the return to the Gospel—the Gospel, that is to say, stripped, as they put it, of the explanations of theology, of the definitions of Councils, of the maxims of asceticism; on the emancipation of the Church, but conceived after a new fashion—an emancipation which will enable them not to revolt, so that they may not be cut off, and yet not to submit, so that they need not abandon their own convictions ”

“ As for tradition, finally, everything is relative and subject to change, and so the authority of the holy Fathers is reduced to nothing. All these and a thousand other heresies they publish in pamphlets, in reviews, in ascetic treatises, even in novels, and they wrap them up in certain ambiguous terms, in certain nebulous forms, so that when put on their defence they may always keep open a way of escape without incurring open condemnation, and thus catch the unwary in their nets. ”

“ If the Roman Pontiffs have always had need of external aid for the accomplishment of their mission, this need is to-day making itself more vividly felt owing to the very serious conditions of the time in which we are living, and of the continual assaults to which the Church is exposed on the part of her enemies. ”