Pius IX Condemns the Modern Italian State

[Stone]

Pius IX Condemns the Modern Italian State



Pius IX, Apostolic Letter Cum Catholica Ecclesia, March 26, 1860

TIA [slightly adapted - emphasis TIA]| January 6, 2024

Today when in the laws of almost every nation the stench of the Masonic tolerance is present, it is salutary to read the words with which Pope Pius IX condemned the founders of the Italian State who invaded and usurped the Pontifical Territories. These words have an exorcist power to expel this bad tolerance and help true Catholic militancy be restored in our souls.

Pope Pius IX

Since we are aware, not without the deepest displeasure of Our soul, that other requests would not find acceptance among those who, having clogged their ears like deaf aspids, have not yet allowed themselves to be moved by Our admonitions and Our complaints, and, on the other hand, feeling most profoundly what the cause of the Church, of this Apostolic See and of the entire Catholic world, attacked with such violence by these perverse men, requires of Us, We feel the duty to avoid what, by remaining without speaking, could be understood as a failure to fulfill the grave task of Our Office.

The situation has been made unsustainable to the point of inducing Us, following in the footsteps of Our Predecessors, to employ Our supreme power, entrusted to Us by God, not only to loosen but also to bind, resorting to a dutiful severity towards the guilty, which also serves as a healthy example for others.

Therefore, after having invoked the light of the Divine Spirit with public and private prayers and after having heard the opinion of a selected Congregation of Our Venerable Brother Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, with the authority of Almighty God, of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and Our own, we declare again that all those who have taken part in the rebellion, usurpation, occupation and criminal invasion of the aforementioned provinces of Our Papal States, and similar matters of which We have complained in Our Allocutions of June 20 and September 26 of last year, as well as those who took part in any of these enterprises – their executors, accomplices, supporters, advisors, followers or anyone else who favored the realization of what was described above – whether having personally taken part in it or by way of any pretext or other means, have incurred Major Excommunication and other ecclesiastical censures and penalties imposed by the Sacred Canons, the Apostolic Constitutions and the Decrees of the General Councils and particularly of the Council of Trent [sess. 22, chap. 11, De reform .]. And, if this be necessary, We strike them again with Excommunication and Anathema.

We further declare that they have simultaneously incurred the loss of all privileges, graces and indults granted, under any title, by Us or by the Roman Pontiffs Our Predecessors. We desire that they not be absolved and freed from these penalties except by Us or by the Roman Pontiff in office (except in the case of danger of death, but in case of convalescence they fall again under the same penalties). They will also be unable and incapable of obtaining the benefit of absolution until they have publicly retracted, revoked, canceled and eliminated everything that in any way they have promoted in this matter; until they have entirely and effectively returned everything to the original situation, to the Church, to Us and the Holy See and have repaired their crime by a proportional penance.