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Rome's Syllabus Of Condemned Opinions

Started by Unbeliever, May 18, 2011, 03:39:03 pm

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Unbeliever

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/condemned_opinions.html

QuoteINTRODUCTION
In recent literature about the Roman Catholic Church one still occasionally meets references to "the Syllabus," or the "Syllabus of Condemned Opinions." A "syllapub" was a delectable medieval drink composed of sugar, cream, brandy, sherry, and lemon -- they knew a lot about drinking in the Ages of Faith -- but what the heck a Syllabus is few have the faintest idea. The word means "a collection," and the ecclesiastical historians will tell you that it was selected as the title of a number of propositions condemned by Pope Pius IX about 90 years ago. Amongst these propositions which Catholics were sternly forbidden to entertain was almost every principle of the American Constitution that had any reference to religion. The good Catholic must regard with abhorrence such statements as that Church and State must be separated, that the ecclesiastical authority has no power over the secular, that education is the business of the State, that there must be complete religious freedom, that a man may choose his religion in the light of his reason and conscience, that all sects must be equal in the law, that a Christian is validly married in a registry office, and so on. But if you ask a Catholic official interpreter of his religion to the American public what it means, he will reply, with the familiar synthetic smile, which is so like that of a Daughter of Joy, that the Popes of 90 years ago did not know what we know today. They did not know, for instance, as slick American priests have discovered, that Thomas Jefferson, who is so largely responsible for the principles of the American Constitution, learned them, especially the great principles of Freedom and Democracy, from the pages of the Roman Jesuits, Suarez and Bellarmine. But if you know that mendacity is one of the primary qualifications of a Catholic apologist, if yon remember that the Pope imposed most of these chains upon the Italian people when he made his infamous $90,000,000 deal with Mussolini, you will want sounder information about the Syllabus. I call it the last blast of the Pope's medieval trumpet, and the reasons why I do so are forgotten historical movements of the last century which make an intriguing and instructive story. But remember the Church's motto: Immutable Rome. Have the Popes merely hung up their brazen trumpet until the glorious day comes when, through a Catholic majority in America, they will again rule the world? And in order that you may be able to form a sound idea on this point I begin with a translation of the complete Latin text of the famous docuriieiit.
"Some say God is living there [in space]. I was looking around very attentively, but I did not see anyone there. I did not detect either angels or gods....I don't believe in God. I believe in man - his strength, his possibilities, his reason."
Gherman Titov, Soviet cosmonaut, in The Seattle Daily Ti