Home > Syllabus of Errors

• pantheism, naturalism, and absolute rationalism;
• moderate rationalism;
• indifferentism and latitudinarianism (tolerance);
• socialism, communism, secret societies, Bible societies , and liberal clerical societies (condemned together as "pests"):
• the church and its rights (defending temporal power in the Papal StatesThe term Holy See ( Latin: Sancta Sedes lit. holy seat") refers in a geographic sense to the episcopal see of Rome, of which the Pope is the ordinary i. the diocesan bishop); in canon law, the terms Holy See and Apostolic See refer to the Pope ("Roman Pon, soon to become a de facto dead issue);
• civil society and its relationship to the church;
• natural and Christian ethicsEthics is a general term for what is often described as the " science of morality". In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is " good". The Western tradition of ethics is sometimes called moral philosophy . This is one of the three major branches of;
• ChristianChristian is: a follower of the faith of Christianity a popular first name and surname, especially in Northern Europe According to the New Testament, those who followed Jesus as his disciples were first called Christians by those who did not share their f marriageMarriage is a relationship that plays a key role in the definition of many families. Precise definitions vary historically and between and within cultures, but it has been an important concept as a socially sanctioned bond between people who (usually) are;
• the temporal power of the PopeThis article is about the Catholic pope. See Pope (disambiguation) for other meanings of the word pope. The Pope is the Catholic bishop and patriarch of Rome, and ex officio supreme spiritual leader of what might be called the Catholic Communion (that is,; and
• modern liberalismLiberalism is a political current embracing several historical and present-day ideologies that claim defense of individual liberty as the purpose of government. It typically favors the right to dissent from orthodox tenets or established authorities in po.

After the Syllabus, it became heresy for a Roman Catholic to believe that "human reason... is the sole arbiter of truth and falsehood, and of good and evil" (No. 3); "in the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship.," (No. 77) for it was heresy to think that "Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church" (No. 18). It was heresy to believe that "the Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." (No. 55) It was heresy to believe that "every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true." (No. 15) It was heresy to say that "the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization." (No. 80)

Many of the statements in the Syllabus had been picked from previous Papal documents; collected in one place, they created a more complete picture of the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. The document met with a mixed reception among Roman Catholics; generally only the most conservativeConservatism or political conservatism is any of several historically related political philosophies or political ideologies. There are also a number of Conservative political parties in various countries. All of these are primarily (though not necessaril of them were able to endorse the document unreservedly. The government of France briefly tried to suppress the circulation of the encyclical and the Syllabus within its borders. Within the Protestant world reactions were uniformly negative. In the United States it was mostly ignored more so than causing a negative reaction. The history of Catholics in America ignoring Papal documents such as these which contradicted the beliefs of the United States is known as Americanism.

Some of the political or dogmatic propositions of the Syllabus may be abrogated by later documents coming from the Second Vatican Council in 1962; before the Council, the Syllabus represented the Roman Catholic Church's teachings on social and political subjects.