Forgotten Truths

There was a time when the Sillon, as such, was truly Catholic. It recognized but one moral force - Catholicism; and the Sillonists proclaimed that Democracy would have to be Catholic or not exist at all. A time came when they changed their minds. They left to each one his religion or his philosophy. … For the construction of the Future City, they appealed to the workers of all religions and all sects. These were asked but one thing: to share the same social ideal, to respect all creeds, and to bring with them a certain amount of moral force. …

Accordingly, they ask all those who want to change today's society in the direction of Democracy, not to oppose each other on account of the philosophical or religious convictions that may separate them, but to march hand in hand; not renouncing their convictions, but trying to provide, on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions. …

What are we to think of this appeal to all the heterodox and to all the unbelievers to prove the excellence of their convictions in the social sphere in a sort of apologetic contest? … What are we to think of this respect for all errors, and of this strange invitation made by a Catholic to all the dissidents to strengthen their convictions by means of study so that they may have increasingly abundant sources of fresh forces? …

Alas! Yes, the ambiguity has been clarified: The social action of the Sillon is no longer Catholic. … But stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, "the reign of love and justice" with workers coming from everywhere, of all religions and of no religion, with or without beliefs, so long as they forego what might divide them – their religious and philosophical convictions – and so long as they share what unites them …

What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, which will benefit the less utopian exploiters of the people. Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train. …

And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! This organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable current of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a Panreligion, which shall have neither dogmas nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind nor curbs for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would return to the world – if such a Church could conquer – the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak and of all those who toil and suffer.

• No Unity Is Possible unless Heretics Return to the Catholic Church
• There Is No Church of Christ outside of the Catholic Church
• Ecumenism Is Synonymous with Religious Indifferentism
• Pius XI Refutes John Paul II’s Ut Unum Sint
• St. Thomas Aquinas on Heretics
• To Deny any Point of the Faith Is to Deny it Completely
• Liberals, Modernists and Progressivists