UBI PRIMUM (On His Assuming the
Pontificate)
Pope
Leo XII
Encyclical of
Pope Leo XII promulgated on 5 May 1824
To All Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and
Bishops.
Venerable Brothers, We Give You Greeting and
Our Apostolic Blessing.
As soon as We were raised to the supreme
pontificate, We began to exclaim immediately with St. Leo the Great: "O
Lord I have heard your utterance and been afraid: I have reflected on your
works and been terrified. For what is so unaccustomed and so much to be feared
as toil to the weak, height to the lowly, rank to the undeserving? Yet We do
not despair or faint since it is not on Ourselves that We depend but on Him who
works in Us."1 That praiseworthy pope spoke thus to humble
himself, but We can say and confess this in very truth.
2. We desired to address you as soon as
possible, venerable brothers, and to reveal Our feelings to you. For you are
Our crown and joy, as your flocks, We feel sure, are crown and joy to you. But
partly because We were preoccupied with the serious concerns of Our Apostolic
office and partly, indeed principally, because We were afflicted by a long
illness, until now We have been unable to do so. This has caused Us great
sorrow. But Our merciful God now grants the fulfillment of Our desire. The
silence, however, which until now We were constrained to observe possessed its
own consolation. For God who consoles the humble consoled Us too by the love
and enthusiasm of your religious devotion for Us. This was a signal instance of
the piety of Christian unity, causing Us to rejoice greatly and to give thanks
to God. And so as a proof of Our love We are sending you this letter to give
you additional encouragement to observe the divine commandments and to fight
bravely the Lord's battles.
3. You know that the Apostle Peter instructed
bishops in these words: "Feed God's flock which is given to you, caring
for them not under constraint but freely for God's sake, not for the sake of
base gain but willingly, nor as lording it over the clergy but being examples
to your flock from the heart."2 From this you understand
rightly the method of action which is proposed for you. You also understand the
virtues of the mind which you should increasingly practice, the richer
knowledge with which you should adorn it, and the fruit of piety and love which
you should not only produce but also share with your flock. In this way you
will certainly attain the object of your ministry and be examples to your flock
from the heart. To some you will give milk, to others meat. You will train your
flock not only by teaching, but by work and example as well, to lead a quiet
life on earth in Christ Jesus. You will lead them to obtain eternal happiness
with you. For the chief of the Apostles says: "And when the prince of shepherds
appears you will receive an imperishable crown of glory."
4. We had hoped to bring many matters to your
attention but We shall simply touch on some of them, and then deal at greater
length with the more serious questions as the need of Our sad times demands.
5. You already understand the teaching of the
Apostle on the great caution required in promoting candidates to minor and
especially to major orders. He writes to Timothy: "Lay hands on no one
quickly."3 You understand also the decrees of the Council of
Trent on the appointment of pastors and on the seminaries for clerics4
and the clarification of these decrees by Our predecessors.
6. You know too the importance of residing
personally in your diocese, a duty to which your office strictly obliges you.
This is evident from the decrees and apostolic constitutions of many councils,
and was confirmed by the holy Council of Trent in the following words:
"The divine commandment orders everyone entrusted with the care of souls
to know their sheep and to offer sacrifice for them. They must also feed them
by preaching the divine word, by administering the sacrament, and by setting a
good example. Furthermore, they must take fatherly care of the poor and other
wretched persons and perform their other pastoral duties. Since none of these
can be accomplished by men who do not attend their flock but abandon it as
hirelings do, the holy council warns and exhorts them to remember the divine
commandments by being an example to their flock, feeding and guiding them in justice
and in truth."5 Bound as We are by the obligation of this great
office and zealous as We are for the glory of God, We heartily praise those who
observe this command strictly. But We warn and exhort those who disobey these
ecclesiastical sanctions—for it is sad but not surprising that there are some
such men among the great number of bishops—to reflect seriously that the
supreme judge will demand the blood of their sheep from their hands and judge
with great strictness those who are their leaders.
7. This fearful sentence, as you know well,
does not strike only those who do not reside in person in their diocese or seek
to leave it on every empty pretext; it includes also those who refuse without
reason to perform the task of visitation according to the prescriptions of the
canons. For they will never satisfy the requirements of the decree of Trent
unless they take care to approach their charges in person and like a good
shepherd cherish the good while they seek the strays and lead them at last to
the fold, by calling and driving some of them strongly and others gently.
8. Bishops who do not with due concern try to
obey the precepts of residence or visitation will not avoid the fearful
judgment of Our Savior the supreme shepherd by pleading that they fulfilled
their duties through delegated ministers.
9. For care of the flock has been entrusted to
themselves not to their ministers; it was to themselves that the gifts of the
Spirit were promised. Consequently the sheep listen more gladly to the voice of
their own shepherd than to that of a representative. They seek salutary food
with more confidence from the shepherd's hand than from his representative's,
and rejoice more to obtain it. For His hand is as the hand of the Lord, whose
person is reverenced in His bishops. All this is also amply borne out by
experience, the world's instructor.
10. It would be enough to write to you on the
previous topics since you are not thankless in keeping silence about your gifts
nor proud in presuming on your merits.6 Certainly men who desire
ardently to progress from virtue to virtue ought to be such as We have
described. Inspired by the example of holy bishops, ancient and recent, they
boast in the Lord of smiting the Church's enemies and reforming evil morals.
But always keep in mind the golden saying of Leo the Great. "In this
struggle no victory is definitive enough to prevent the recurrence of
conflict."7
11. Who can reflect without weeping on the
fierce and mighty conflicts which have raged in Our times and continue to rage
almost daily against the Catholic religion? Listen to
12. But at what are these remarks aimed? A
certain sect, which you surely know, has unjustly arrogated to itself the name
of philosophy, and has aroused from the ashes the disorderly ranks of
practically every error. Under the gentle appearance of piety and liberality
this sect professes what they call tolerance or indifferentism. It preaches
that not only in civil affairs, which is not Our concern here, but also in
religion, God has given every individual a wide freedom to embrace and adopt
without danger to his salvation whatever sect or opinion appeals to him on the
basis of his private judgment. The apostle Paul warns us against the impiety of
these madmen. "I beseech you, brethren, to behold those who create
dissensions and scandals beyond the teaching which you have learned. Keep away
from such men. They do not serve Christ Our Lord but their own belly, and by
sweet speeches and blessings they seduce the hearts of the innocent."10
13. Of course this error is not new, but in Our
days it rages with a new rashness against the constancy and integrity of the
Catholic faith. Eusebius cites Rhodo as his source
for saying that the heretic Apelles in the second century had already produced
the mad theory that faith should not be investigated, but that each man should
persevere in the faith he was raised in.11 Even those who put faith
in a crucified man were to be saved, according to Apelles, provided that they
engaged in good works. Rhetorius too, as We learn
from
14. Certainly many remarkable authors,
adherents of the true philosophy, have taken pains to attack and crush this
strange view. But the matter is so self-evident that it is superfluous to give
additional arguments. It is impossible for the most true God, who is Truth
Itself, the best, the wisest Provider, and the Rewarder
of good men, to approve all sects who profess false teachings which are often
inconsistent with one another and contradictory, and to confer eternal rewards
on their members. For we have a surer word of the prophet, and in writing to
you We speak wisdom among the perfect; not the wisdom of this world but the
wisdom of God in a mystery. By it we are taught, and by divine faith we hold
one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and that no other name under heaven is given
to men except the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth in which we must be saved.
This is why we profess that there is no salvation outside the Church.
15. But Oh! the depth of the riches of the
wisdom and knowledge of God! How incomprehensible His judgments!13
God, who destroys the wisdom of the wise, has clearly given the enemies of His
Church, who despise supernatural revelation, a perverted mind14 corresponding
to the symbol of iniquity which was written on the forehead of the wicked woman
in the Apocalypse.15 For what greater iniquity is there than for
those proud men not only to abandon true religion, but also to seek to ensnare
the imprudent by criticisms of every sort, in speech and writings filled with
all deceit! Let God arise and restrain, make futile and destroy this unbridled
license in all its manifestations.
16. Furthermore, quite apart from the flood of
evil books which are intrinsically hostile to religion, the wickedness of our
enemies has gone so far as to try to turn against religion the sacred writings
divinely given to us for the building up of religion.
17. You have noticed a society, commonly called
the Bible society, boldly spreading throughout the whole world. Rejecting the
traditions of the holy Fathers and infringing the well-known decree of the
Council of Trent,16 it works by every means to have the holy Bible
translated, or rather mistranslated, into the ordinary languages of every
nation. There are good reasons for fear that (as has already happened in some
of their commentaries and in other respects by a distorted interpretation of
Christ's gospel) they will produce a gospel of men, or what is worse, a gospel
of the devil!17
18. To prevent this evil, Our predecessors
published many constitutions. Most recently Pius VII wrote two briefs, one to
Ignatius, Archbishop of Gniezno, the other to Stanislaus, Archbishop of Mohileu, quoting carefully and wisely many passages from the
sacred writings and from the tradition to show how harmful to faith and morals
this wretched undertaking is.
19. In virtue of Our apostolic office, We too
exhort you to try every means of keeping your flock from those deadly pastures.
Do everything possible to see that the faithful observe strictly the rules of
our Congregation of the Index. Convince them that to allow holy Bibles in the
ordinary language, wholesale and without distinction, would on account of human
rashness cause more harm than good.
20. Experience also shows that this is true,
and aside from other Fathers, St. Augustine states it in the following words:
"Heresies and other wicked teachings which ensnare souls and cast them
into the deep, arise only when the good scriptures are badly understood and
when what is not well understood in them is affirm, d with daring
rashness."18
21. Such is the object of this society and it
leaves no means untried to achieve its objective. For it delights in printing
its own translations, as well as in dashing through every city to distribute
them itself to the common people. Indeed, to seduce the minds of the simple, it
is careful to sell them in one place, while elsewhere it wants to give them as
a gift with calculating generosity.
22. But if one wishes to search out the true
source of all the evils which We have already lamented, as well as those which
We pass over for the sake of brevity, he will surely find that from the start
it has ever been a dogged contempt for the Church's authority. The Church, as
St. Leo the Great teaches,19 in well-ordered love accepts Peter in
the See of Peter, and sees and honors Peter in the person of his successor the
Roman pontiff. Peter still maintains the concern of all pastors in guarding
their flocks, and his high rank does not fail even in an unworthy heir.20
In Peter then, as is aptly remarked by the same holy Doctor, the courage of all
is strengthened and the help of divine grace is so ordered that the constancy
conferred on Peter through Christ is conferred on the apostles through Peter.
It is clear that contempt of the Church's authority is opposed to the command
of Christ and consequently opposes the apostles and their successors, the
Church's ministers who speak as their representatives.21 He who
hears you, hears me; and he who despises you, despises me; and the Church is
the pillar and firmament of truth, as the apostle Paul teaches.22 In
reference to these words St. Augustine says: "Whoever is without the
Church will not be reckoned among the sons, and whoever does not want to have
the Church as mother will not have God as father."23
23. Therefore, venerable brothers, keep all
these words in mind and often reflect on them. Teach your people great
reverence for the Church's authority which has been directly established by
God. Do not lose heart. With
24. So We urge you again not to lose heart. We
are confident that you will have the powerful support of secular princes since
the question of the Church's authority has a bearing on their own authority, as
both reason and experience prove. For Caesar can receive what is his only if
God is given what is His. As St. Leo said, "Our duty to serve you all will
give you additional support. In difficulties, in doubts and in every need, have
recourse to this Apostolic See. For God has placed the teaching of truth in the
see of unity, as
25. Finally, We beseech you, by the Lord's
mercy. Assist Us by your prayers to God that the Spirit of grace may abide in
Us and that your decisions may not falter. May He who has given you the desire
for agreement grant the blessing of peace to us all in general, that We may be
able all the days of Our life to serve Almighty God and hold you in reverence
and pray to the Lord with confidence: "Holy Father, preserve them whom you
have given me in your holy name."26
In this confidence We impart wholeheartedly
both to you and to your flock the Apostolic blessing, pledge of Our love.
Given at
ENDNOTES
1. Serm. 3, on his
birthday, delivered on the anniversary of his elevation to the pontificate.
2. I Pt 5.2-3.
3. I Tm 5.22.
4. Session 23, chap. 18.
5. Session 23 on reform, chap. 1.
6. St. Leo, serm. 5
on his birthday.
7. Ibid.
8. Comm. on Gal 3.8.
9. St. Leo, serm. 5.
10. Rom 16.
11. Hist. eccl., 5.
12. De haeresibus, no. 72.
13. I Cor 1.
14. Rom 1.28.
15. Apoc 17.5.
16. Session 4 on the publication and use of
sacred books.
17.
18. Treatise 18 on Jn
5.
19. St. Leo, serm. 2,
on his birthday.
20. Ibid., serm. 3,
on his birthday.
21. Lk 10.
22. I Tim 3.
23. Bk. 4, de Symb.
ad catech., chap. 13.
24. Enarrat. 2 in Ps
31.
25. Ep 103 (166) to
the Donatists.
26. St. Leo, serm. 1,
and Jn 17.