NE HAVING AUTHORITY." Mt. vii. Lk. iv. reatly struck with His teaching; em as having authority 31. And He went down into Capharnaum, a city of Galilee, and He was teaching them on the sabbath. 32. And they were greatly struck with His teaching, for His word was with authority. ENCYCLICAL LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS PIUS X BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE POPE TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS AND OTHER LOCAL ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE MODERNISTS To the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other local Ordinaries in peace and communion with the Apostolic See PIUS X POPE VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH AND APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION. The office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord's flock has especially this duty assigned to it by Christ, namely, to guard with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and oppositions of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body; for, owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking "men speaking perverse things" (Acts xx. 30), "vain talkers and seducers" (Tit. i. 10), "erring and driving into error" (2 Tim. iii. 13). Still it must be confessed that the number of the enemies of the cross of Christ has in these last days increased exceedingly, who are striving, by arts, entirely new and full of subtlety, to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, if they can, to overthrow utterly Christ's kingdom itself. Wherefore We may no longer be silent, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be attributed to forgetfulness of Our office. GRAVITY OF THE SITUATION. That We make no delay in this matter is rendered necessary especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church's open enemies; they lie hid, a thing to be deeply deplored and feared, in her very bosom and heart, and are the more mischievous, the less conspicuously they appear. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, nay, and this is far more lamentable, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, feigning a love for the Church, lacking the firm protection of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, vaunt themselves |