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Given by His
Holiness Pope Pius X
November 18, 1907
Motu proprio of Our Most Holy Lord Pius X., by Divine Providence Pope,
on the decisions of the Pontifical Commission on the Bible and on the
censures and penalties against those who neglect to observe the
prescriptions against the errors of the modernists:
In his encyclical letter "Providentissimus Deus," given on November 18,
1893, our predecessor, Leo XIII, of immortal memory, after describing
the dignity of Sacred Scripture and commending the study of it, set
forth the laws which govern the proper study of the Holy Bible; and
having proclaimed the divinity of these books against the errors and
calumnies of the rationalists, he at the same time defended them
against the false teachings of what is known as the higher criticism,
which, as the Pontiff most wisely wrote, are clearly nothing but the
commentaries of rationalism derived from a misuse of philology and
kindred studies. Our predecessor, too, seeing that the danger was
constantly on the increase and wishing to prevent the propagation of
rash and erroneous views, by his apostolic letters "Vigilantes
studiique memores," given on October 30, 1902, established a Pontifical
Council or Commission on Biblical matters, composed of several
Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church distinguished for their learning and
wisdom, to which Commission were added as consulters a number of men in
sacred orders chosen from among the learned in theology and in the Holy
Bible, of various nationalities and differing in their methods and
views concerning exegetical studies. In so doing the Pontiff had in
mind as an advantage most adapted for the promotion of study and for
the time in which we live that in this Commission there should be the
fullest freedom for proposing, examining and judging all opinions
whatsoever, and that the Cardinals of the Commission were not to reach
any definite decision, as described in the said apostolic letters,
before they had examined the arguments in favor and against the
question to be decided, omitting nothing which might serve to show in
the clearest light the true and genuine state of the Biblical questions
under discussion. Only after all this had been done were the decisions
reached to be submitted for the approval of the Supreme Pontiff and
then promulgated.
After mature examination and the most diligent deliberations the
Pontifical Biblical Commission has happily given certain decisions of a
very useful kind for the proper promotion and direction on safe lines
of Biblical studies. But we observe that some persons, unduly prone to
opinions and methods tainted by pernicious novelties and excessively
devoted to the principle of false liberty, which is really immoderate
license and in sacred studies proves itself to be a most insidious and
a fruitful source of the worst evils against the purity of the faith,
have not received and do not receive these decisions with the proper
obedience.
Wherefore we find it necessary to declare and to expressly prescribe,
and by this our act we do declare and decree that all are bound in
conscience to submit to the decisions of the Biblical Commission
relating to doctrine, which have been given in the past and which shall
be given in the future, in the same way as to the decrees of the Roman
congregations approved by the Pontiff; nor can all those escape the
note of disobedience or temerity, and consequently of grave sin, who in
speech or writing contradict such decisions, and this besides the
scandal they give and the other reasons for which they may be
responsible before God for other temerities and errors which generally
go with such contradictions.
Moreover, in order to check the daily increasing audacity of many
modernists who are endeavoring by all kinds of sophistry and devices to
detract from the force and efficacy not only of the decree "Lamentabili
sane exitu" (the so-called Syllabus), issued by our order by the Holy
Roman and Universal Inquisition on July 3 of the present year, but also
of our encyclical letters "Pascendi dominici gregis" given on September
8 of this same year, we do by our apostolic authority repeat and
confirm both that decree of the Supreme Sacred Congregation and those
encyclical letters of ours, adding the penalty of excommunication
against their contradictors, and this we declare and decree that should
anybody, which may God forbid, be so rash as to defend any one of the
propositions, opinions or teachings condemned in these documents he
falls, ipso facto, under the censure contained under the chapter
"Docentes" of the constitution "Apostolicae Sedis," which is the first
among the excommunications latae sententiae, simply reserved to the
Roman Pontiff. This excommunication is to be understood as salvis
poenis, which may be incurred by those who have violated in any way the
said documents, as propagators and defenders of heresies, when their
propositions, opinions and teachings are heretical, as has happened
more than once in the case of the adversaries of both these documents,
especially when they advocate the errors of the modernists that is, the
synthesis of all heresies.
Wherefore we again and most earnestly exhort the ordinaries of the
dioceses and the heads of religious congregations to use the utmost
vigilance over teachers, and first of all in the seminaries; and should
they find any of them imbued with the errors of the modernists and
eager for what is new and noxious, or lacking in docility to the
prescriptions of the Apostolic See, in whatsoever way published, let
them absolutely forbid the teaching office to such; so, too, let them
exclude from sacred orders those young men who give the very faintest
reason for doubt that they favor condemned doctrines and pernicious
novelties. We exhort them also to take diligent care to put an end to
those books and other writings, now growing exceedingly numerous, which
contain opinions or tendencies of the kind condemned in the encyclical
letters and decree above mentioned; let them see to it that these
publications are removed from Catholic publishing houses, and
especially from the hands of students and the clergy. By doing this
they will at the same time be promoting real and solid education, which
should always be a subject of the greatest solicitude for those who
exercise sacred authority.
All these things we will and order to be sanctioned and established by
our apostolic authority, aught to the contrary notwithstanding.
Given at Rome in Saint Peter's, the 18th November, 1907, the fifth year
of our Pontificate.
Pius PP. X.
Website Editor's Note: Note that the old Pontifical Biblical Commission
was considered magisterial; the present
Commission is not, as is admitted to by Cardinal Ratzinger, who clearly
states in a preface to the 1994 document "The Interpretation of the
Bible in the Church" that (my emphasis) "The Pontifical Biblical
Commission, in its new form after the Second Vatican Council, is
not an organ of the teaching office, but rather a commission of
scholars who, in their scientific and ecclesial responsibility as
believing exegetes, take positions on important problems of Scriptural
interpretation and know that for this task they enjoy the confidence of
the teaching office."
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