Pius X, 1903-1914

Sec. 2. They also hold for the same Catholics mentioned above, if they contract betrothal or marriage with non-Catholics, whether baptized or not baptized, even after having obtained dispensation from the impediment of mixed marriage, or of difference of worship, unless it has otherwise been established by the Holy See for some particular place or region.

Sec. 3. Non-Catholics, whether baptized or not baptized, if they make contracts between themselves, are nowhere bound to keep the Catholic form of betrothal or of marriage.

Let the present decree lawfully published and promulgated be kept by its transmission to the ordinaries of places; and let what has been disposed in it begin to have the force of law everywhere, from the solemn day of the Pasch of the Resurrection D.N.I.C. [April 19] of next year, 1908.

The False Doctrines of the Modernists ¹

[From the Encyclical, "Pascendi dominici gregis," Sept. 8, 1907]

2071. Since it is a very clever artifice on the part of the modernists (for they are rightly so-called in general) not to set forth their doctrines arranged in orderly fashion and collected together, but as if scattered, and separated from one another, so that they seem very vague and, as it were, rambling, although on the contrary they are strong and constant, it is well, Venerable Brothers, first to present these same doctrines here in one view, and to show the nexus by which they coalesce with one another, that we may then examine the causes of the errors and may prescribe the remedies to remove the calamity. . . . But, that we may proceed in orderly fashion in a rather abstruse subject, this must be noted first of all, that every modernist plays several roles, and, as it were, mingles in himself, (I) the philosopher of course, (II) the believer, (III) the theologian, (IV) the historian, (V) the critic, (VI) the apologist, (VII) the reformer. All these roles he must distinguish one by one, who wishes to understand their system rightly, and to discern the antecedents and the consequences of their doctrines.

2072. [I] Now, to begin with the philosopher, the modernists place the foundation of their religious philosophy in that doctrine which is commonly called agnosticism. Perforce, then, human reason is entirely restricted to phenomena, namely, things that appear, and that appearance by which they appear; it has neither the right nor the power to transgress the limits of the same. Therefore, it cannot raise itself to God nor recognize His existence, even through things that are seen. Hence, it is inferred that God can by no means be directly an object of science; yet,