I have felt that this duty devolves as an heirloom upon me; and it has been my intention to treat of the Encyclical and Syllabus fully and explicitly. But the urgency of other duties has delayed it till now; and I have been compelled to content myself with publishing those two Pontifical acts in our fifth Diocesan Synod, as a part of the supreme and infallible teaching of the Church, both in the declarations and in the condemnations contained in them.
And now that half the Episcopate of the Church has spoken, proclaiming that, from the moment the voice of Peter reached them, all the declarations and condemnations of his successor were to them the rule of their teaching, I know not what I have to add. Nevertheless, I may hope at a future day to treat of some of the propositions of the Syllabus which are either most assailed, or nearest in their bearing upon us. I have no hesitation in saying that the Encyclical and Syllabus of 1864 are among the greatest acts of this Pontificate. The Encyclicals which preceded them had condemned many of the chief anti-Christian and anti-social errors of the day. They had prepared for the unanimous declaration of the Episcopate in 1862, on the subject of the temporal power, to which afterwards the whole number of the absent bishops adhered. Deny it who may, that act stemmed the tide of public opinion in Europe. It extinguished within the unity of the Church the few who murmured against the temporal power, or spoke laxly or erroneously about it. The unanimity of Catholics
