We speak, Venerable Brethren, of what your own eyes have witnessed, and over which our tears flow in common. Wickedness is restless, science grown insolent, licentiousness unrestrained. The holiness of things sacred is despised; and the majesty of the divine worship, at once so efficacious and so necessary, is called in question, is vilified, is mocked at by evil men. Hence the perversion of sound doctrine, and hence the effrontery with which errors of every kind are disseminated. The law of the sanctuary, its rights, its customs, whatever is most holy in discipline, is attacked by the tongues of them that speak iniquity. Our Roman See of St. Peter, on which Christ laid the foundation of His Church, is assailed on all sides; and the bonds of unity are every day weakened, and breaking asunder. The divine authority of the Church is opposed; robbed of her rights, She is laid prostrate to satisfy human expediency, and iniquity exposes her a degraded slave to the hatred of the nations. The obedience due to Bishops is infringed, and their rights are trodden under foot. The schools and the universities echo monstrous novelties, which no longer content themselves with undermining the foundation of the Catholic faith, but quitting their lurking holes, rush openly to horrid and impious war with it.—The youth corrupted by the doctrines and examples of their teachers, have inflicted a deep wound upon Religion, and have introduced a most gloomy perversion of manners. Hence it is that men flinging away the restraints of our Holy religion, which can alone keep together the elements of kingdoms, and impart strength and stability to government, have brought us to witness the destruction of public order, the downfall of States, and the overthrow of all legitimate power. These accumulated miseries owe their origin principally however to the activity of certain societies, in which is collected, as in one common receptacle, whatever heresy, or the most impious sects, offer of crime, of sacrilege, and of blasphemy.
These things, Venerable Brethren, and many others, some perhaps more distressing, which it were long to enumerate, must still, as you well know, embitter and prolong Our grief, seated as We are in the Chair of the Prince of the Apostles, where the zeal for the whole of Our Father's House must consume Us more than others. But aware at the same time that We have been placed here not only to deplore, but also to crush the evils to the utmost of Our power, We turn to your fidelity for aid, and We appeal to your solicicitude for the salvation of the Catholic flock, Venerable Brethren, because your tried virtue and religion, exemplary prudence, and unremitting zeal, give Us courage, and shed a sweet consolation over Our minds, afflicted as they are in
