"When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of
men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds
of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and
those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is
born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of
foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings
who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a
monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.
Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them,
concealed in many deceitful disguises, cause greater ruin to public calm
the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a
serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ’s blood wherever their teaching
spreads, like a cancer, it forces its way into public academies, into
the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the
sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so."
-Pope Pius VI, “Inscrutabile” (On The Problems Of The Pontificate)
"The fideles, be they many or few, be their doctrine apparently
traditional or apparently innovatory, be their champions honest or
unscrupulous, are simply those who are in visible communion with the see
of Rome… And in fact there can be little doubt that, in the West, our labeling of this party as orthodox and that as heterodox in early
Church history comes down to us from authors who were applying this test
of orthodoxy and no other."
