Having come to the twenty-fifth year of Our Apostolic Ministry, and being astonished Ourselves at the length of the way which We have travelled amidst painful and continual cares, We are naturally inspired to lift Our thoughts to the ever-blessed God, Who, with so many other favors, has deigned to accord Us a Pontificate the length of which  has scarcely been surpassed in history.  To the Father of all mankind, therefore; to Him who holds in His Hands the Mysterious Secret of life, ascends, as an imperious need of the heart, the Canticle of Our Thanksgiving.  Assuredly the eye of man cannot pierce all the depths of the designs of God in thus prolonging Our old age beyond the limits of hope: here We can only be silent and adore.  But there is one thing which We do well understand; namely, that as it has pleased Him, and still pleases Him, to preserve Our existence, a great duty is incumbent on Us--to live for the good and the development of His Immaculate Spouse, the Holy Church; and far from losing courage in the midst of cares and pains, to Consecrate to Him the remainder of Our strength unto Our last sigh.
    After paying a just tribute of gratitude to Our Heavenly Father, to Whom be Honor and Glory for all Eternity, it is most agreeable to Us to turn Our thoughts and address Our words to you, Venerable Brothers, who, called by the Holy Ghost to Govern the appointed portions of the flock of Jesus Christ, share thereby with Us in the struggle and triumph, the sorrows and joys, of the Ministry of Pastors.  No, they shall never fade from Our memory, those frequent and striking testimonials of Religious veneration which you have lavished upon Us during the course of Our Pontificate, and which you still multiply with emulation full of tenderness in the present circumstances. Intimately united with you already by Our duty and Our Paternal love, We are more closely drawn by those proofs of your devotedness, so dear to Our hearts, less for what was personal in them in Our regard than for the inviolable attachment which they denote to this Apostolic See, center and mainstay of all the Sees of Catholicity.  If it has always been necessary that, according to the different grades of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, all the children of the Church should be sedulously united by the bonds of mutual Charity and by the pursuit of the same objects, so as to form but one heart and one soul, this union is become in our day more indispensable than ever.  For who can igniore the vast conspiracy of hostile forces which aims today at destroying and making disappear the great work of Jesus Christ, by endeavoring, with a fury which knows no limits, to rob man, in the intellectual order, of the treasure of Heavenly Truths, and, in the social order, to obliterate the most Holy, the most salutary Christian Institutions.  But by all this you yourselves are impressed everyday.  You who, more than once, have poured out to Us your anxieties and anguish, deploring the multitude of prejudices, the false systems and errors which are disseminated with impunity amongst the masses of the people.  What snares are set one very side for the souls of those who believe!  What obstacles are multiplied to weaken, and if possible to destroy the beneficent action of the Church!  And, meanwhile, as if to add derision to injustice, the Church herself is charged with having lost her pristine vigor, and with being powerless to stem the tide of overflowing passions which threaten to carry everything away.
    We would wish, Venerable Brothers, to entertain you with subjects less sad and more in harmony with the great and auspicious occasion which induces Us to address you.  But nothing suggests such tenor of discourse--neither the grievous trials of the church which call with instance for prompt remedies; nor the conditions of contemporary society which, already undermined from a moral and material point of view, tend toward a  yet more gloomy future by the abandonment of the great Christian Traditions; a Law of Providence, confirmed by history, proving that the great Religious Principles cannot be renounced without shaking at the same time the foundations of order and social prosperity.  In those circumstances, in order to allow souls to recover, to furnish them with a new provision of faith and courage, it appears to Us opportune and useful to weigh attentively, in its origin, causes, and various forms, the implacable war that is waged against the Church; and in denouncing its pernicious consequences to indicate a remedy.  May Our words, therefore, resound loudly, though they but recall truths already asserted; may they be hearkened to, not only by the children of Catholic Unity, but also by those who differ from Us, and even by the unhappy souls who have no longer anyfaith; for they are all children of one Father, all destined for the same supreme good: may Our words, finally, be received as the testament which, at the short distance that separates Us from eternity, We would wish to leave to the people as a presage of the salvation which We desire for all.
    During the whole course of her history the Church of Christ has had to combat and suffer for Truth and Justice.  Instituted by the Divine Redeemer Himself to establish throughout the world the Kingdom of God, she must, by the light of the Gospel Law, lead fallen humanity to its immortal destinies; that is, to make it enter upon the possession of the Blessings without end which God has promised us, and to which our unaided natural power could never rise--a Heavenly mission in the pursuit of which the church could not fail to be opposed by the countless passions begotten of man's primal fall and consequent corruption--pride, cupidity, unbridled desire of material pleasures; against all the vices and disorders springing from those poisonous roots the Church has ever been the most potent means of restraint.  Nor should we be astonished at the persecutions which have arisen, in consequence, since the Divine Master foretold them, and they must continue as long as this world endures.  What words did He address to His Disciples when sending them to carry the treasure of His Doctrines to all Nations?  They are familiar to us all: "You will be persecuted from city to city: you will be hated and despised for My Name's sake: you will be dragged before the tribunals, and condemned to extreme punishment."  And wishing to encourage them for the hour of trail, He proposed Himself as their example: if the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated Me before you. (St. John xv. 18.)
    Certainly, no one who takes a just and unbiased view of things can explain the motive of this hatred.  What offence was ever committed, what hostility deserved by the Divine Redeemer?  Having come down amongst men through an impulse of Divine Charity, He had taught a Doctrine that was blameless, consoling, most efficacious to unite mankind in a brotherhood of peace and Love; He had coveted neither earthly greatness nor honor; He had usurped no one's right; on the contraty, He was full of pity for the weak, the sick, the poor, the sinner, and the oppressed: hence His life was but a passage to distribute with munificent hand His benefits amongst men.  We must acknowledge, in consequence, that it was simply by an excess of human malice, so much the more deplorable because unjust, that, nevertheless, He became, in Truth, according to the Prophecy of Simeon, "a sign to be contradicted."
    What wonder, then, if the Catholic Church, which continues His Divine mission, and is the incorruptible depositary of His Truths, has inherited the same lot.  The world is always consistent in its way.  Near the sons of God are constantly present the satellites of that great adversary of the human race, who, a rebel from the beginning against the Most High, is named in the Gospel the prince of this world.  It is on this account that the spirit of the world, in the presence of the Law of Him who announces it in the Name of God, swells with the measureless pride of an independence that ill befits it. Alas, how often, in more stormy epochs, with unheard of cruelty and shameless injustice, and to the evident undoing of the whole social body, have the adversaries banded themselves together for the foolhardy enterprise of dissolving the work of God! And not succeeding with one manner of persecution, they adopted others.  For three long centuries, the Roman Empire, abusing its brute force, scattered the bodies of martyrs through all its provinces, and bathed with their blood every foot of ground in this Sacred City of Rome; while heresy, acting in concert,whether hidden beneath a mask or with open effrontery, with sophistry and snare, endeavored to destroy at least the harmony and unity of Faith.  Then were set loose, like a devastating tempest, the hordes of barbarians from the north, and the Moslems from the south, leaving in their wake only ruins in a desert.  So has been transmitted from age to age the melancholy heritage of hatred by which the Spouse of Christ has been overwhelmed. There followed a Caesarism as suspicious, as powerful, jealous of all other power, no matter what development it might itself have thence acquired, which incessantly attacked the Church, to usurp her rights and tread her liberties under foot.  The heart bleeds to see this mother so often oppressed with anguish and woes unutterable.  However, triumphing over every obstacle, over all violence and all tyrannies, she pitched her peaceful tents more and more widely; she saved from disaster the glorious patrimony of arts, history, science, and letters; and imbuing deeply the whole body of society with the Spirit of the Gospel, she created Christian civilization--that civilization to which the Nations, subjected to its beneficent influence, owe the equity of their Laws, the mildness of their manners, the protection of the weak, pity for the afflicted and the poor, respect for the rights and dignity of all men and thereby, as far as it is possible amidst the fluctuations of human affairs, the calm of social life which springs from the just and prudent alliance between justice and liberty.
    Those proofs of the intrinsic excellence of the Church are as striking and sublime as they have been enduring.  Nevertheless, as in the Middle Ages and during the first centuries, so in those nearer our own, we see the Church assailed more harshly, in a certain sense at least, and more distressingly than ever.  Through a series of well-known historical causes, the pretended Reformation of the sixteenth century raised the standard of revolt; and, determining to strike out straight into the heart of the Church, audaciously attacked the Papacy.  It broke the precious link of the ancient Unity of faith and Authority, which, multiplying a hundredfold Power, Prestige, and Glory, thanks to the harmonious pursuit of the same objects, united all Nations under one Staff and one Shepherd.  This Unity being broken, a pernicious principle of disintegration was introduced amongst all ranks of Christians.
    We do not, indeed, hereby pretend to affirm that from the beginning there was a set purpose of destroying the Principle of Christianity in the heart of society; but by refusing, on the one hand, to acknowledge the Supremacy of the Holy See, the effective cause and bond of Unity, and by proclaiming, on the other, the principle of private judgment, the Divine Structure of Faith was shaken to its deepest Foundations and the way was opened to infinite variations, to doubts and denials of the most important things, to an extent which the innovators themselves had not foreseen.  The way was opened.  Then came the contemptuous and mocking philosophism of the eighteenth century, which advanced farther.  It turned to ridicule the Sacred Canon of the Scriptures and rejected the entire system of revealed Truths, with the purpose of being able ultimately to root out from the conscience of the people all Religious belief and stifling within it the last breath of the Spirit of Christianity.  It is from this source that have flowed rationalism, pantheism, naturalism, and materialism--poisonous and destructive systems which, under different appearances, renew the ancient errors triumphantly refuted by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church; so that the pride of modern times, by excessive confidence in its own lights, was stricken with blindness; and, like paganism, subsisted thenceforth on fancies, even concerning the attibutes of the human soul and the immortal destinies which constitute our Glorious Heritage.
    The struggle against the Church thus took on a more serious character than in the past, no less because of the vehemence of the assault than because of its Universality.  Contemporary unbelief does not confine itself to denying or doubting Articles of Faith. What it combats is the whole body of Principles which Sacred Revelation and sound Philosophy maintain; those fundamental and Holy Principles which Teach man the Supreme Object of his earthly life, which keep him in the performance of his duty, which inspire his heart with courage and resignation, and which, in promising him incorruptible Justice and perfect happiness beyond the tomb, enable him to subject time to eternity, earth to Heaven. But what takes the place of these Principles which form the incomparable strength bestowed by Faith?  A frightful scepticism, which chills the heart and stifles in the conscience every magnanimous aspiration.
    This system of practical atheism must necessarily cause, as in point of fact it does, a profound dis order in the domain of morals; for, as the greatest Philosophers of antiquity have declared, Religion is the Chief Foundation of Justice and Virtue.  When the bonds are broken which unite man to God, Who is the Sovereign Legislator and Universal Judge, a mere phantom of morality remains; a morality which is purely civic and, as it is termed, independent, which, abstracting from the Eternal Mind and the Laws of God, descends inevitably till it reaches the ultimate conclusion of making man a law unto himself.  Incapable, in consequence, of rising on the Wings of Christian hope to the goods of the world beyond, man will seek a material satisfaction in the comforts and enjoyments of life.  There will be excited in him a thirst for pleasure, a desire of riches, and an eager quest of rapid and unlimited wealth, even at the cost of Justice.  There will be enkindled in him every ambition and a feverish and frenzied desire to gratify them even indefiance of law, and he will be swayed by a contempt for right and for public authority,as well as by licentiousness of life which, when the condition becomes general, will mark the real decay of society.
    Perhaps We may be accused of exaggerating the sad consequences of the disorders of which We speak.  No; for the reality is before our eyes and warrants but too truly Our forebodings.  It is manifest that if there is not some betterment soon, the bases of society will crumble and drag down with them the great and eternal Principles of Law and Morality.
    It is in consequence of this condition of things that the social body, beginning with the family, is suffering such serious evils.  For the lay State, forgetting its limitations and the essential object of the Authority which it wields, has laid its hands on the marriage bond to profane it and has stripped it of its Religious character; it has dared as much as it could in the matter of that natural right which parents possess to educate their children, and in many countries it has destroyed the stability of marriage by giving a  legal sanction to the licentious institution of divorce.  All know the result of these attacks.  More than words can tell they have multiplied marriages which are prompted only by shameful passions, which are speedily dissolved, and which, at times, bring about bloody tragedies, at others the most shocking infidelities.  We say nothing of the innocent offspring of these unions, the children who are abandoned or whose morals are corrupted on one side by the bad example of the parents, on the other by the poison which the officially lay State constantly pours into their hearts.
    Along with the family, the political and social order is also endangered by doctrines which ascribe a false origin to Authority, and which have corrupted the genuine conception of Government. For if Sovereign Authority is derived formally from the consent of the people and not from God, Who is the Supreme and Eternal Principle of all Power, it loses in the eyes of the governed its most august characteristic and degenerates into an artificial sovereignty which rests on unstable and shifting bases, namely, the will of those from whom it is said to be derived.  Do we not see the consequences of this error in the caraying out of our Laws?  Too often these Laws instead of being sound reason formulated in writing are but the expression of the power of the greater number and the will of the predominant political party.  It is thus that the mob is cajoled in seeking to satisfy its desires; that a loose rein is given to popular passion, even when it disturbs the laboriously acquired tranquillity of the State, when the disorder in the last extremity can only be quelled by violent measures and the shedding of blood.
    Consequent upon the repudiation of those Christian Principles which had contributed so efficaciously to unite the Nations in the bonds of brotherhood, and to bring all humanity into one great family, there has arisen little by little, in the international order, a system of jealous egoism, in consequence of which the Nations now watch each other, if not with hate, at least with the suspicion of rivals.  Hence, in their great undertakings they lose sight of the lofty Principles of Morality and Justice and forget the protection which the feeble and the oppressed have a right to demand.  In the desire by which they are actuated to increase their National riches, they regard only the opportunity which circumstances afford, the advantages of successful enterprises, and the tempting bait of an accomplished fact, sure that no one will trouble them in the name of right or the respect which right can claim.  Such are the fatal principles which have consecrated material power as the Supreme Law of the world, and to them is to be imputed the limitless increase of military establishments and that armed peace which in many respects is equivalent to a disastrous war.
    This lamentable confusion in the realm of ideas has produced restlessness among the people, outbreaks, and the general spirit of rebellion.  From these have sprung the frequent popular agitations and disorders of our times which are only the preludes of much more terrible disorders in the future. The miserable condition, also, of a large part of the poorer classes, who assuredly merit our assistance, furnishes an admirable opportunity for the designs of scheming agitators, and especially of socialist factions, which hold out to the humbler classes the most extravagant promises and use them to carry out the most dreadful projects.
    Those who start on a dangerous descent are soon hurled down in spite of themselves into the abyss.  Prompted by an inexorable logic, a society of veritable criminals has been organized, which, at its very first appearance, has, by its savage character, startled the world.  Thanks to the solidarity of its construction and its international ramifications, it has already attempted its wicked work, for it stands in fear of nothing and recoils before no danger.  Repudiating all union with society, and cynically scoffing at Law, Religion, and Morality, its adepts have adopted the name of Anarchists, and propose to utterly subvert the actual conditions of society by making use of every means that a blind and savage passion can suggest.  And as society draws its unity and its life from the Authority which governs it, so it is against Authority that anarchy directs its efforts.  Who does not feel a quiver of horror, indignation, and pity at the remembrance of the many victims that of late have fallen beneath its blows, emperors, empresses, kings, presidents of powerful Republics, whose only crime was the Sovereign Power with which they were invested?
    In presence of the immensity of the evils which overwhelm society and the perils which menace it, Our Duty compels Us to again warn all men of good will, especially those who occupy exalted positions, and to conjure them as We now do, to devise what remedies the situation calls for and with prudent energy to apply them without delay.
    First of all, it behooves them to inquire what remedies are needed, and to examine well their potency in the present needs.  We have extolled liberty and its advantages to the skies, and have proclaimed it as a sovereign remedy and an incomparable instrument of peace and prosperity which will be most fruitful in good results.  But facts have clearly shown us that it does not possess the Power which is attributed to it.  Economic conflicts, struggles of the classes are surging around us like a conflagration on all sides, and there is no promise of the dawn of the day of public tranquillity.  In point of fact, and there is no one who does not see it, liberty as it is now understood, that is to say, a liberty granted indiscriminately to Truth and to error, to good and to evil, ends only in destroying all that is Noble, Generous, and Holy, and in opening the gates still wider to crime, to suicide, and to a multitude of the most degrading passions.
    The doctrine is also taught that the development of public instruction, by making the people more polished and more enlightened, would suffice as a check to unhealthy tendencies and to keep man in the ways of uprightness and probity.  But a hard reality has made us feel every day more and more of how little avail is instruction without Religion and Morality.  As a necessary consequence of inexperience, and of the promptings of bad passions, the mind of youth is enthralled by the perverse teachings of the day.  It absorbs all the errors which an unbridled press does not hesitate to sow and broadcast which depraves the mind and the will of youth and foments in them that spirit of pride and insubordination which so often trouble the peace of families and cities.
    So also was confidence reposed in the progress of Science.  Indeed the century which has just closed, has witnessed progress that was great, unexpected, stupendous.  But is it true that it has given us all the fulness and healthfulness of fruitage that so many expected from it?  Doubtless the discoveries of Science have opened new horizons to the mind; it has widened the empire of man over the forces of matter, and human life has been ameliorated in many ways through its instrumentality.  Nevertheless, every one feels and many admit that the results have not corresponded to the hopes that were cherished.  It cannot be denied, especially when we cast our eyes on the intellectual and moral status of the world as well as on the records of criminality, when we hear the dull murmurs which arise from the depths, or when we witness the predominace which might has won over right.  Not to speak of the throngs who are a prey to every misery, a superficial glance at the condition of the world will suffice to convince us of the indefinable sorrow which weighs  upon souls and the immense void which is in human hearts.  Man may subject nature to his sway, but matter cannot give him what it has not, and to the questions which most deeply affect our gravest interests human Science gives no reply.  The thirst for Truth, for good, for the Infinite, which devours us, has not been slaked, nor have the joys and riches of earth, nor the increase of the comforts of life ever soothed the anguish which tortures the heart.  Are we then to despise and fling aside the advantages which accrue from the study of Science, from civilization and the wise and sweet use of our liberty?  Assuredly no.  On the contrary, we must hold them in the highest esteem, guard them and make them grow as a treasure of great price, for they are means which of their nature are good, designed by God Himself, and ordained by the Infinite Goodness and Wisdom for the use and advantage of the human race.  But we must subordinate the use of them to the intentions of the Creator, and so employ them as never to eliminate the Religious element in which their real advantage resides, for it is that which bestows on them a special value and renders them really fruitful.  Such is the secret of the problem.  When an organism perishes and corrupts, it is because it had ceased to be under the action of the causes which had given it its form and constitution.  To make it healthy and flourishing again it is necessary to restore it to the vivifying action of those same causes.  So society in its foolhardy effort to escape from God has rejected the Divine Order and Revelation; and it is thus withdrawn from the salutary efficacy of Christianity which is manifestly the most solid guarantee of order, the strongest bond of fraternity, and the inexhaustible source of all public and private virtue.  This sacrilegious divorce has resulted in bringing about the trouble which now disturbs the world.  Hence it is the pale of the Church which this lost society must re-enter, if it wishes to recover its well-being, its repose, and its salvation.
    Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order.  With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men.  It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes.  If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barabrism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the True road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.  In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate.  It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles.  It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption.  It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine Assistance and of that immortality which has been promised It, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the Commands which It has received, to carry the Doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect It in Its inviolable integrity.  Legitimate dispenser of the Teachings of the Gospel It does not reveal Itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of Justice and Charity, and the Propagator as well as the Guardian of True Liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below.  In applying the Doctrine of Its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the True Limits between the rights and privileges of society.  The equality which It proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes.  It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices.  The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of Truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty.  Not does it infringe upon the rights of Justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are Superior to the rights of humanity.

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