Section — Konings, Theologia Moralis
§ V: Errors Concerning the Church and Her Rights
- The Church is not a true and perfect society, plainly free, nor is she endowed with her own proper and constant rights conferred on her by her divine Founder; but it belongs to the civil power to define what the rights of the Church are, and the limits within which she can exercise those same rights.
Alloc. Singulari quadam, December 9, 1854. - Alloc. Multis gravibusque, December 17, 1860. - Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862.
- Ecclesiastical power ought not to exercise its authority without the permission and assent of the civil Government.
Alloc. Meminit unusquisque, September 30, 1861.
- The Church does not have the power of defining dogmatically that the Religion of the Catholic Church is the only true Religion.
Apostolic Letters Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851.
- The obligation by which Catholic teachers and writers are wholly bound is confined only to those things which are proposed by the infallible judgment of the Church as dogmas of Faith to be believed by all.
Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, December 21, 1863.
- The Roman Pontiffs and Ecumenical Councils have departed from the limits of their power, usurped the rights of Princes, and even erred in defining matters of Faith and morals.
Apostolic Letters Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851.
- The Church does not have the power of inflicting force, nor any temporal power, direct or indirect.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- Besides the power inherent in the episcopate, another temporal power has been attributed, conceded by the civil empire either expressly or tacitly, and therefore to be revoked, whenever it pleases, by the civil empire.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- The Church does not have a native and legitimate right of acquiring and possessing.
Alloc. Nunquam fore, December 15, 1856. - Encyclical letter Incredibili, September 17, 1863.
- The sacred Ministers of the Church and the Roman Pontiff are to be wholly excluded from every care and dominion of temporal things.
Alloc. Maxima quidem, June 9, 1862.
- It is not lawful for Bishops, without the permission of the Government, even to promulgate Apostolic Letters themselves.
Alloc. Nunquam fore, December 15, 1856.
- Graces conceded by the Roman Pontiff ought to be judged as void unless they have been implored through the Government.
Alloc. Nunquam fore, December 15, 1856.
- The immunity of the Church and of ecclesiastical persons took its origin from civil law.
Apostolic Letters Multiplices inter, June 10, 1851.
- The ecclesiastical forum for temporal causes of Clerics, whether civil or criminal, is wholly to be taken out of the midst, even without the Apostolic See being consulted and while it protests.
Alloc. Acerbissimum, September 27, 1852. - Alloc. Nunquam fore, December 15, 1856.
- Without any violation of natural law and equity, the personal immunity by which Clerics are exempted from the burden of undergoing and exercising military service can be abrogated; and civil progress demands this abrogation, especially in a society constituted according to the form of a freer government.
Letter to the Bishop of Monreale, Singularis Nobisque, September 29, 1864.
- It does not pertain uniquely to the ecclesiastical power of jurisdiction, by its proper and native right, to direct the doctrine of theological matters.
Letter to the Archbishop of Freising, Tuas libenter, December 21, 1863.
- The doctrine comparing the Roman Pontiff to a free Prince acting in the universal Church is a doctrine which prevailed in the middle age.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- Nothing prevents that, by the sentence of some General Council or by the deed of all peoples, the supreme Pontificate be transferred from the Roman Bishop and City to another Bishop and another city.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- The definition of a National Council admits no other disputation, and the civil administration can bring the matter to these terms.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.
- National Churches can be instituted, withdrawn from and plainly divided from the authority of the Roman Pontiff.
Alloc. Multis gravibusque, December 17, 1860. - Alloc. Jamdudum cernimus, March 18, 1861.
- The excessive arbitrariness of the Roman Pontiffs contributed to the division of the Church into Eastern and Western.
Apostolic Letters Ad Apostolicae, August 22, 1851.