          Printed in Appendix to "Born in Blood"

(Following is an English translation, from the original Latin, of the
encyclical Humanum Genus, the strongest and most comprehensive
papal condemnation of Freemasonry, promulgated in 1884.)

                        THE MASONIC SECT

                         LEO, POPE, XIII.

To all venerable Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops
in the Catholic world who have grace and communion with
the Apostolic See:

VENERABLE BROTHERS:

Health and the Apostolic Benediction!

THE HUMAN RACE, after, by the malice of the devil, it had departed from
God, the Creator and Giver of heavenly gifts, divided itself into two dif-
ferent and opposing parties, one of which assiduously combats for truth
and virtue, the other for those things which are opposed to virtue and
to truth. The one is the Kingdom of God on earth--that is, the Church
of Jesus Christ; those who desire to adhere to which from their soul and
conducively to salvation must serve God and His only begotten Son
with their whole mind and their whole will. The other is the kingdom
of Satan, in whose dominion and power are all who have followed his
sad example and that of our first parents. They refuse to obey divine
and eternal law, and strive for many things to the neglect of God and for
many against God. This twofold kingdom, like two states with contrary
laws working in contrary directions, Augustine clearly saw and
described, and comprehended the efficient cause of both with subtle
brevity in these words: "Two loves have made two states: the love of self
to the contempt of God has made the earthly, but the love of God to the
contempt of self has made the heavenly." (De Civ. Dei, lib. xiv., chap.

The one fights the other with different kinds of weapons, and battles
at all times, though not always with the same ardor and fury. In our
days, however, those who follow the evil one seem to conspire and strive
all together under the guidance and with the help of that society of men
spread all over, and solidly established, which they call Free-Masons.
Not dissimulating their intentions, they vie in attacking the power of
God; they openly and ostensibly strive to damage the Church, with the
purpose to deprive thoroughly if possible Christian people of the bene-
fits brought by the Saviour Jesus Christ.

Seeing these evils, we are compelled by charity in our soul to say
often to God: "For lo! Thy enemies have made noise; and they that hate
Thee have lifted up the head. They have taken malicious counsel
against Thy people, and have consulted against Thy saints. They have
said: Come and let us destroy them, so that they be not a nation." (Ps.
lxxxii., 2-4)

In such an impending crisis, in such a great and obstinate warfare
upon Christianity, it is our duty to point out the danger, exhibit the
adversaries, resist as much as we can their schemes and tricks, lest those
whose salvation is in our hands should perish eternally: and that the
kingdom of Jesus Christ, which we have received in trust, not only may
stay and remain intact, but may continue to increase all over the world
by new additions.

The Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, watching constantly over the
safety of the Christian people, early recognized this capital enemy rush-
ing forth out of the darkness of hidden conspiracy, and, anticipating the
future in their mind, gave the alarm to princes and people, that they
should not be caught by deceptions and frauds.

Clement XII. first signalized the danger in 1738, and Benedict XIV.
renewed and continued his Constitution. Pius VII. followed them both;
and Leo XII., by the Apostolic Constitution--quo graviora--
recapitulating the acts and decrees of the above Pontiffs about the mat-
ter, validated and confirmed them forever. In the same way spoke Pius
VIII., Gregory XVI., and very often Pius IX.

The purpose and aim of the Masonic sect having been discovered
from plain evidence, from the cognition of causes, its laws, Rites and
commentaries having come to light and been made known by the addi-
tional depositions of the associated members, this Apostolic See
denounced and openly declared that the sect of Masons is established
against law and honesty, and is equally a danger to Christianity as well
as to society; and, threatening those heavy punishments which the
Church uses against the guilty ones, she forbade the society, and
ordered that none should give his name to it. Therefore the angry
Masons, thinking that they would escape the sentence or partially
destroy it by despising or calumniating, accused the Pope who made
those decrees of not having made a right decree or of having over-
stepped moderation. They thus tried to evade the authority and the
importance of the Apostolic Constitutions of Clement XII., Benedict
XIV., Pius VII., and Pius IX. But in the same society there were some
who, even against their own will, acknowledged that the Roman Pon-
tiffs had acted wisely and lawfully, according to the Catholic discipline.
In this many princes and rulers of States agreed with the Popes, and
either denounced Masonry to the Apostolic See or by appropriate laws
condemned it as a bad thing in Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Spain,
Bavaria, Savoy, and other parts of Italy.

But the event justified the prudence of our predecessors, and this is
the most important. Nay, their paternal care did not always and every-
where succeed, either because of the simulation and shrewdness of the
Masons themselves, or through the inconsiderate levity of others whose
duty required of them strict attention. Hence, in a century and a half
the sect of Masons grew beyond expectation; and, creeping audaciously
and deceitfully among the various classes of the people, it grew to be so
powerful that now it seems the only dominating power in the States.
From this rapid and dangerous growth have come into the Church and
into the State those evils which our predecessors had already foreseen.
It has indeed come to this, that we have serious fear, not for the Church,
which has a foundation too firm for men to upset it, but for those States
in which this society is so powerful--or other societies of a like kind, and
which show themselves to be servants and companions of Masonry.

For these reasons, when we first succeeded in the government of the
Church, we saw and felt very clearly the necessity of opposing so great
an evil with the full weight of our authority. On all favorable occasions
we have attacked the principal doctrines in which the Masonic perver-
sity appeared. By our Encyclical Letter, quod apostoloci muneris, we
attacked the errors of Socialists and Communists; by the Letter, Arca-
num, we tried to explain and defend the genuine notion of domestic
society, whose source and origin is in marriage; finally, by the letter
which begins Diuturnum, we proposed a form of civil power consonant
with the principles of Christian wisdom, responding to the very nature
and the the welfare of people and Princes. Now, after the example of
our predecessors, we intend to turn our attention to the Masonic soci-
ety, to its whole doctrine, to its intentions, acts, and feelings, in order to
illustrate more and more this wicked force and stop the spread of this
contagious disease.

There are several sects of men which, though different in name, cus-
toms, forms, and origin, are identical in aim and sentiment with
Masonry. It is the universal center from which they all spring, and to
which they all return. Although in our days these seem to no longer care
to hide in darkness, but hold their meetings in the full light and under
the eyes of their fellow-men and publish their journals openly, yet they
deliberate and preserve the habits and customs of secret societies. Nay,
there are in them many secrets which are by law carefully concealed not
only from the profane, but also from many associated, viz., the last and
intimate intentions, the hidden and unknown chiefs, the hidden and
secret meetings, the resolutions and methods and means by which they
will be carried into execution. Hence the difference of rights and of
duties among the members; hence the distinction of orders and grades
and the severe discipline by which they are ruled. The initiated must
promise, nay, take an oath, that they will never, at any way or at any
time, disclose their fellow-members and the emblems by which they are
known, or expose their doctrines. So, by false appearance, but with the
same kind of simulation, the Masons chiefly strive, as once did the Man-
icheans, to hide and to admit no witnesses but their own. They seek
skillfully hiding places, assuming the appearance of literary men or phi-
losophers, associated for the purpose of erudition; they have always
ready on their tongues the speech of cultivated urbanity, and proclaim
their charity toward the poor; they look for the improvement of the
masses, to extend the benefits of social comfort to as many of mankind
as possible. Those purposes, though they may be true, yet are not the
only ones. Besides, those who are chosen to join the society must prom-
ise and swear to obey the leaders and teachers with great respect and
trust; to be ready to do whatever is told them, and accept death and the
most horrible punishment if they disobey. In fact, some who have
betrayed the secrets or disobeyed an order are punished with death so
skillfully and so audaciously that the murder escaped the investigations
of the police. Therefore, reason and truth show that the society of
which we speak is contrary to honesty and natural justice.

There are other and clear arguments to show that this society is not
in agreement with honesty. No matter how great the skill with which
men conceal it, it is impossible that the cause should not appear in its
effects. "A good tree cannot yield bad fruits, nor a bad tree good ones."
(Matt. vii., 18.) Masonry generates bad fruits mixed with great bitter-
ness. From the evidence above mentioned we find its aim, which is the
desire of overthrowing all the religious and social orders introduced by
Christianity, and building a new one according to its taste, based on the
foundation and laws of naturalism.

What we have said or will say must be understood of Masonry in gen-
eral and of all like societies, not of the individual members of the same.
In their number there may be not a few who, though they are wrong in
giving their names to these societies, yet are neither guilty of their
crimes nor aware of the final goal which they strive to reach. Among the
associations also, perhaps, some do not approve the extreme conclu-
sions which, as emanating from common principles, it would be neces-
sary to embrace if their deformity and vileness would not be too repul-
sive. Some of them are equally forced by the places and times not to go
so far as they would go or others go; and yet they are not to be consid-
ered less Masonic for that, because the Masonic alliance has to be con-
sidered not only from actions and deeds, but from general principles.

Now, it is the principle of naturalists, as the name itself indicates, that
human nature and human reason in everything must be our teacher and
guide. Having once settled this, they are careless of duties toward God,
or they pervert them with false opinions and errors. They deny that any-
thing has been revealed by God; they do not admit any religious dogma
and truth but what human intelligence can comprehend; they do not
allow any teacher to be believed on his official authority. Now, it being
the special duty of the Catholic Church, and her duty only, to keep the
doctrines received from God and the authority of teaching with all the
heavenly means necessary to salvation and preserve them integrally
incorrupt, hence the attacks and rage of the enemies are turned against
her.

Now, if one watches the proceedings of the Masons, in respect of reli-
gion especially, where they are more free to do what they like, it will
appear that they carry faithfully into execution the tenets of the natu-
ralists. They work, indeed, obstinately to the end that neither the teach-
ing nor the authority of the Church may have any influence; and there-
fore they preach and maintain the full separation of the Church from
the State. So law and government are wrested from the wholesome and
divine virtue of the Catholic Church, and they want, therefore, by all
means to rule States independent of the institutions and doctrines of
the Church.

To drive off the Church as a sure guide is not enough; they add per-
secutions and insults. Full license is given to attack with impunity, both
by words and print and teaching, the very foundations of the Catholic
religion; the rights of the Church are violated; her divine privileges are
not respected. Her action is restricted as much as possible; and that by
virtue of laws apparently not too violent, but substantially made on pur-
pose to check her freedom. Laws odiously partial against the clergy are
passed so as to reduce its number and its means. The ecclesiastical rev-
enue is in a thousand ways tied up, and religious associations abolished
and dispersed.

But the war wages more ardently against the Apostolic See and the
Roman Pontiff. He was, under a false pretext, deprived of the temporal
power, the stronghold of his rights and of his freedom; he was next
reduced to an iniquitous condition, unbearable for its numberless bur-
dens until it has come to this, that the Sectarians say openly what they
had already in secret devised for a long time, viz., that the very spiritual
power of the Pope ought to be taken away, and the divine institution of
the Roman Pontificate ought to disappear from the world. If other argu-
ments were needed for this, it would be sufficiently demonstrated by
the testimony of many who often, in times bygone and even lately,
declared it to be the real supreme aim of the Free-Masons to persecute,
with untamed hatred, Christianity, and that they will never rest until
they see cast to the ground all religious institutions established by the
Pope.

If the sect does not openly require its members to throw away of
Catholic faith, this tolerance, far from injuring the Masonic schemes, is
useful to them. Because this is, first, an easy way to deceive the simple
and unwise ones and it is contributing to proselytize. By opening their
gates to persons of every creed they promote, in fact, the great modem
error of religious indifference and of the parity of all worships, the best
way to annihilate every religion, especially the Catholic, wnich, being
the only true one cannot be joined with others without enormous injus-
tice.

But naturalists go further. Having entered, in things of greatest
importance, on a way thoroughly false, through the weakness of human
nature or by the judgment of God, who punishes pride, they run to
extreme errors. Thus the very truths which are known by the natural
light of reason, as the existence of God, the spirituality and immortality
of the soul, have no more consistence and certitude for them.

Masonry breaks on the same rocks by no different way. It is true,
Free-Masons generally admit the existence of God; but they admit
themselves that this persuasion for them is not firm, sure. They do not
dissimulate that in the Masonic family the question of God is a principle
of great discord; it is even known how they lately had on this point seri-
ous disputes. It is a fact that the sect leaves to the members full liberty
of thinking about God whatever they like, affirming or denying His exis-
tence. Those who boldly deny His existence are admitted as well as
those who, like the Pantheists, admit God but ruin the idea of Him,
retaining an absurd caricature of the divine nature, destroying its real-
ity. Now, as soon as this supreme foundation is pulled down and upset,
many natural truths must need go down, too, as the free creations of
this world, the universal government of Providence, immortality of soul,
fixture, and eternal life.

Once having dissipated these natural principles, important practi-
cally and theoretically, it is easy to see what will become of public and
private morality. We will not speak of supernatural virtues, which, with-
out a special favor and gift of God, no one can practice nor obtain, and
of which it is impossible to find a vestige in those who proudly ignore
the redemption of mankind, heavenly grace, the sacraments, and eter-
nal happiness. We speak of duties which proceed from natural honesty.
Because the principles and sources of justice and morality are these, a
God, creator and provident ruler of the world, the eternal law which
commands respect and forbids the violation of natural order; the
supreme end of man settled a great deal above created things outside of
this world. These principles once taken away by the Free-Masons as by
the naturalists, immediately natural ethics has no more where to build
or to rest. They only morality which Free-Masons admit, and by which
they would like to bring up youth, is that which they call civil and inde-
pendent, or the one which ignores every religious idea. But how poor,
uncertain, and variable at every breath of passion is this morality, is
demonstrated by the sorrowful fruits which partially already appear.
Nay, where it has been freely dominating, having banished Christian
education, probity and integrity of manners go down, horrible and mon-
strous opinions raise their head, and crimes grow with fearful audacity.
This is deplored by everybody, and by those who are compelled by evi-
dence and yet would not like to speak so.

Besides, as human nature is infected by original sin and more inclined
to vice than to virtue, it is not possible to lead an honest life without
mortifying the passions and submitting the appetites to reason. In this
fight it is often necessary to despise created good, and undergo the
greatest pains and sacrifices in order to preserve to conquering reason
ib own empire. But naturalists and Masons, rejecting divine revelation,
deny original sin, and do not acknowledge that our free will is weakened
and bent to evil. To the contrary, exaggerating the strength and excel-
lency of nature, and settling in her the principles and unique role of jus-
tice, they cannot even imagine how, in order to counteract its motions
and moderate its appetites, continuous efforts are needed and the great-
est constancy. This is the reason why we see so many enticements
offered to the passions, journals, and reviews without any shame, theat-
rical plays thoroughly dishonest; the liberal arts cultivated according to
the principles of an impudent realism, effeminate and delicate living
promoted by the most refined inventions; in a word, all the enticements
apt to seduce or weaken virtue carefully practiced--things highly to
blame, yet becoming the theories of those who take away from man
heavenly goods, and put all happiness in transitory things and bind it to
earth.

What we have said may be confirmed by things of which it is not easy
to think or speak. As these shrewd and malicious men do not find more
servility and docility than in souls already broken and subdued by the
tyranny of the passions, there have been in the Masonic sect some who
openly said and proposed that the multitudes should be urged by all
means and artifice into license, so that they should afterward become an
easy instrument for the most daring enterprise.

For domestic society the doctrine of almost all naturalists is that mar-
riage is only a civil contract, and may be lawfully broken by the will of
the contracting parties; the State has power over the matrimonial bond.
In the education of the children no religion must be applied, and when
grown up every one will select that which he likes.

Now Free-Masons accept these principles without restriction; and
not only do they accept them, but they endeavor to act so as to bring
them into moral and practical life. In many countries which are profess-
edly Catholic, marriages not celebrated in the civil form are considered
null; elsewhere laws allow divorce. In other places everything is done in
order to have it permitted. So the nature of marriage will be soon
changed and reduced to a temporary union, which can be done and
undone at pleasure.

The sect of the Masons aims unanimously and steadily also at the
possession of the education of children. They understand that a tender
age is easily bent, and that there is no more useful way of preparing for
the State such citizens as they wish. Hence, in the instruction and edu-
cation of children, they do not leave to the ministers of the Church any
part either in directing or watching them. In many places they have
gone so far that children's education is all in the hands of laymen: and
from moral teaching every idea is banished of those holy and great
duties which bind together man and God.

The principles of social science follow. Here naturalists teach that
men have all the same rights, and are perfectly equal in condition; that
every man is naturally independent; that no one has a right to command
others; that it is tyranny to keep men subject to any other authority than
that which emanates from themselves. Hence the people are sovereign;
those who rule have no authority but by the commission and concession
of the people; so that they can be deposed, willing or unwilling, accord-
ing to the wishes of the people. The origin of all rights and civil duties
is in the people or in the State, which is ruled according to the new prin-
ciples of liberty. The State must be godless; no reason why one religion
ought to be preferred to another; all to be held in the same esteem.

Now it is well known that Free-Masons approve these maxims, and
that they wish to see governments shaped on this pattern and model
needs no demonstration. It is a long time, indeed, that they have worked
with all their strength and power openly for this, making thus an easy
way for those, not a few, more audacious and bold in evil, who meditate
the communion and equality of all goods after having swept away from
the world every distinction of social goods and conditions.

From these few hints it is easy to understand what is the Masonic sect
and what it wants. Its tenets contradict so evidently human reason that
nothing can be more perverted. The desire of destroying the religion
and Church established by God, with the promise of immortal life, to
try to revive, after eighteen centuries, the manners and institutions of
paganism, is great foolishness and bold impiety. No less horrible or
unbearable is it to repudiate the gifts granted through His adversaries.
In this foolish and ferocious attempt, one recognizes that untamed
hatred and rage of revenge kindled against Jesus Christ in the heart of
Satan.

The other attempt in which the Masons work so much, viz., to pull
down the foundations of morality, and become co-operators of those
who, like brutes, would see that become lawful which they like, is noth-
ing but to urge mankind into the most abject and ignominious degrada-
tion.

This evil is aggravated by the dangers which threaten domestic and
civil society. As we have at other times explained, there is in marriage,
through the unanimous consent of nations and of ages, a sacred and reli-
gious character; and by divine law the conjugal union is indissoluble.
Now, if this union is dissolved, if divorce is juridically permitted, confu-
sion and discord must inevitably enter the domestic sanctuary, and
woman will lose her dignity and children every security of their own wel-
fare.

That the State ought to profess religious indifference and neglect
God in ruling society, as if God did not exist, is a foolishness
unknown to the very heathen, who had so deeply rooted in their
mind and in their heart, not only the idea of God, but the necessity
also of public worship, that they supposed it to be easier to find a
city without any foundation than without any God. And really human
society, from which nature has made us, was instituted by God, the
author of the same nature, and from Him emanates, as from its
source and principle, all this everlasting abundance of numberless
goods. As, then, the voice of nature tells us to worship God with reli-
gious piety, because we have received from Him life and the goods
which accompany life, so, for the same reasons, people and States
must do the same. Therefore those who want to free society from any
religious duty are not only unjust but unwise and absurd.

Once grant that men through God's will are born for civil society, and
that sovereign power is so strictly necessary to society that when this
fails society necessarily collapses, it follows that the right of command
emanates from the same principle from which society itself emanates;
hence the reason why the minister of God is invested with such author-
ity. Therefore, so far as it is required from the end and nature of human
society, one must obey lawful authority as we would obey the authority
of God, supreme ruler of the universe; and it is a capital error to grant
to the people full power of shaking off at their own will the yoke of obe-
dience.

Considering their common origin and nature, the supreme end pro-
posed to every one, and the right and duties emanating from it, men no
doubt are all equal. But as it is impossible to find in them equal capacity,
and as through bodily or intellectual strength one differs from others,
and the variety of customs, inclinations, and personal qualities are so
great, it is absurd to pretend to mix and unify all this and bring in the
order of civil life a rigorous and absolute equality. As the perfect consti-
tution of the human body results from the union and harmony of differ-
ent parts, which differ in form and uses, but united and each in his own
place form an organism beautiful, strong, useful, and necessary to life,
so in the State there is an infinite variety of individuals who compose
it. If these all equalized were to live each according to his own whim, it
would result in a city monstrous and ugly; whereas if distinct in har-
mony, in degrees of offices, of inclinations, of arts, they co-operate
together to the common good, they will offer the image of a city well
harmonized and conformed to nature.

The turbulent errors which we have mentioned must inspire govern-
ments with fear; in fact, suppose the fear of God in life and respect for
divine laws to be despised, the authority of the rulers allowed and
authorized would be destroyed, rebellion would be left free to popular
passions, and universal revolution and subversion must necessarily
come. This subversive revolution is the deliberate aim and open pur-
pose of the numerous communistic and socialistic associations. The
Masonic sect has no reason to call itself foreign to their purpose,
because Masons promote their designs and have with them common
capital principles. If the extreme consequences are not everywhere
reached in fact, it is not the merit of the sect nor owing to the will of the
members, but of that divine religion which cannot be extinguished, and
of the most select part of society, which, refusing to obey secret socie-
ties, resists strenuously their immoderate efforts.

May Heaven grant that universally from the fruits we may judge the
root, and from impending evil and threatening dangers we may know
the bad seedl We have to fight a shrewd enemy, who, cajoling Peoples
and Kings, deceives them all with false promises and fine flattery.

Free-Masons, insinuating themselves under pretence of friendship
into the hearts of Princes, aim to have them powerful aids and accom-
plices to overcome Christianity, and in order to excite them more
actively they calumniate the Church as the enemy of royal privileges
and power. Having thus become confident and sure, they get great
influence in the government of States, resolve yet to shake the founda-
tions of the thrones, and persecute, calumniate, or banish those sover-
eigns who refuse to rule as they desire.

By these arts flattering the people, they deceive them. Proclaiming all
the time public prosperity and liberty; making multitudes believe that
the Church is the cause of the iniquitous servitude and misery in which
they are suffering, they deceive people and urge on the masses craving
for new things against both powers. It is, however, true that the expec-
tation of hoped-for advantages is greater than the reality; and poor peo-
ple, more and more oppressed, see in their misery those comforts vanish
which they might have easily and abundantly found in organized Chris-
tian society. But the punishment of the proud, who rebel against the
order established by the providence of God, is that they find oppression
and misery exactly where they expected prosperity according to their
desire.

Now, if the Church commands us to obey before all God, the Lord
of everything, it would be an injurious calumny to believe her the
enemy of the power of Princes and a usurper of their rights. She wishes,
on the contrary, that what is due to civil power may be given to it con-
scientiously. To recognize, as she does, the divine right of command,
concedes great dignity to civil power, and contributes to conciliate the
respect and love of subjects. A friend of peace and the mother of con-
cord, she embraces all with motherly love, intending only to do good to
men. She teaches that justice must be united with clemency, equity
with command, law with moderation, and to respect every right, main-
tain order and public tranquillity, relieve as much as possible public and
private miseries. "But," to use the words of St. Augustine, "they believe,
or want to make believe, that the doctrine of Gospel is not useful to soci-
ety, because they wish that the State shall rest not on the solid founda-
tion of virtue, but on impunity of vice."

It would, therefore, be more according to civil wisdom and more nec-
essary to universal welfare that Princes and Peoples, instead of joining
the Free-Masons against the Church, should unite with the Church to
resist the Free-Masons' attacks.

At all events, in the presence of such a great evil, already too much
spread, it is our duty, venerable brethren, to find a remedy. And as we
know that in the virtue of divine religion, the more hated by Masons as
it is the more feared, chiefly consists the best and most solid of efficient
remedy, we think that against the common enemy one must have
recourse to this wholesome strength.

We, by our authority, ratify and confirm all things which the Roman
Pontiffs, our predecessors' have ordered to check the purposes and stop
the efforts of the Masonic sect, and all these which they establish to
keep off or withdraw the faithful from such societies. And here, trusting
greatly to the good will of the faithful, we pray and entreat each of them,
as they love their own salvation, to make it a duty of conscience not to
depart from what has been on this point prescribed by the Apostolic
See.

We entreat and pray you, venerable brethren, who co-operate with
us, to root out this poison, which spreads widely among the Nations. It
is your duty to defend the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Keep-
ing before your eyes those two ends, you shall lack neither in courage
nor in fortitude. To judge which may be the more efficacious means to
overcome difficulties and obstacles belongs to your prudence. Yet as we
find it agreeable to our ministry to point out some of the most useful
means, the first thing to do is to strip from the Masonic sect its mask and
show it as it is, teaching orally and by pastoral letters the people about
the frauds used by these societies to flatter and entice, the perversity of
its doctrines, and the dishonesty of its works. As our predecessors have
many times declared, those who love the Catholic faith and their own
salvation must be sure that they cannot give their names for any reason
to the Masonic sect without sin. Let no one believe a simulated honesty.
It may seem to some that Masons never impose anything openly con-
trary to faith or to morals, but as the scope and nature is essentially bad
in these sects, it is not allowed to give one's name to them or to help
them in any way.

It is also necessary with assiduous sermons and exhortations to arouse
in the people love and zeal for religious instruction. We recommend,
therefore, that by appropriate declarations, orally and in writing, the
fundamental principles of those truths may be explained in which
Christian wisdom is entertained. It is only thus that minds can be cured
by instruction, and warned against the various forms of error and vice,
and the various enticements especially in this great freedom of writing
and great desire of learning.

It is a laborious work, indeed, in which you will have associated and
companioned your clergy, if properly trained and taught by your zeal.
But such a beautiful and important cause requires the co-operating
industry of those laymen who unite doctrine and probity with the love
of religion and of their country. With the united strength of these two
orders endeavor, dear brethren, that men may know and love the
Church; because the more their love and knowledge of the Church
grows the more they will abhor and fly from secret societies.

Therefore, availing ourselves of this present occasion, we remind you of
the necessity of promoting and protecting the Third Order of St. Francis,
whose rules, with prudent indulgence, we lately mitigated. According to
the spirit of its institution it intends only to draw men to imitate Jesus
Christ, to love the Church, and to practice all Christian virtues, and there-
fore it will prove useful to extinguish the contagion of sects.

May it grow more and more, this holy congregation, from which,
among others, can be expected also this precious fruit of bringing minds
back to liberty, fraternity, and equality; not those which are the dream
of the Masonic sect, but which Jesus Christ brought into this world and
Francis revived. The liberty, we say, of the children of God which frees
from the servitude of Satan and from the passions, the worst tyrants; the
fraternity which emanates from God, the Father and Creator of all; the
equality established on justice and charity, which does not destroy
among men every difference, but which, from variety of life, offices,
and inclinations, makes that accord and harmony which is exacted by
nature for the utility and dignity of civil society.

Thirdly, there is an institution wisely created by our fore-fathers, and
by lapse of time abandoned, which in our days can be used as a model
and form for something like it. We mean the colleges or corporations of
arts and trades associated under the guidance of religion to defend inter-
ests and manners, which colleges, in long use and experience, were of
great advantage to our fathers, and will be more and more useful to our
age, because they are suited to break the power of the sects. Poor
working-men, for besides their condition, deserving charity and relief,
they are particularly exposed to the seductions of the fraudulent and
deceivers. They must, therefore, be helped with the greatest generosity
and invited to good societies that they may not be dragged into bad
ones. For this reason we would like very much to see everywhere arise,
fit for the new times, under the auspices and patronage of the Bishops,
these associations, for the benefit of the people. It gives us a great plea-
sure to see them already established in many places, together with the
Catholic patronages; two institutions which aim to help the honest class
of workingmen, and to help and protect their families, their children,
and keep in them, with the integrity of manners, love of piety and
knowledge of religion.

Here we cannot keep silence concerning the society of St. Vincent de
Paul, celebrated for the spectacle and example offered and so well
deserving of the poor. The works and intentions of that society are well
known. It is all for the succor and help of the suffering and poor, encour-
aging them with wonderful tact and that modesty which the less showy
the more is fit for the exercise of Christian charity and the relief of
human miseries.

Fourthly, in order more easily to reach the end, we recommend to
your faith and watchfulness the youth, the hope of civil society. In the
good education of the same place a great part of your care. Never
believe you have watched or done enough in keeping youth from those
masters from whom the contagious breath of the sect is to be feared.
Insist that parents, and spiritual directors in teaching the catechism may
never cease to admonish appropriately children and pupils of the
wicked nature of these sects, that they may also learn in time the various
fraudulent arts which their propagators use to entice. Those who pre-
pare children for first communion will do well if they will persuade them
to promise not to give their names to any society without asking their
parents' or their pastor's or their confessor's advice.

But we understand how our common labor would not be sufficient to
outroot this dangerous seed from the field of the Lord, if the Heavenly
Master of the vineyard is not to this effect granting to us His generous
help. We must, then, implore His powerful aid with anxious fervor equal
to the gravity of the danger and to the greatness of the need. Inebriated
by its prosperous success, Masonry is insolent, and seems to have no
more limits to its pertinacity. Its sectaries bound by an iniquitious alli-
ance and secret unity of purpose, they go on hand in hand and encour-
age each other to dare more and more for evil. Such a strong assault
requires a strong defence. We mean that all the good must unite in a
great society of action and prayers. We ask, therefore, from them two
things: On one hand, that, unanimously and in thick ranks, they resist
immovably the growing impetus of the sects; on the other, that, raising
their hands with many sighs to God, they implore that Christianity may
grow vigorous; that the Church may recover her necessary liberty; that
wanderers may come again to salvation; that errors give place to truth
and vice to virtue.

Let us invoke for this purpose the mediation of Mary, the Virgin
Mother of God, that against the impious sects in which one sees clearly
revived the contumacious pride, the untamed perfidy, the simulating
shrewdness of Satan, she may show her power, she who triumphed over
him since the first conception.

Let us pray also St. Michael, the prince of the angelic army, con-
queror of the infernal enemy; St. Joseph, spouse of the most Saintly Vir-
gin, heavenly and wholesome patron of the Catholic Church; the great
Apostles Peter and Paul, propagators and defenders of the Christian
faith. Through their patronage and the perseverance of common
prayers let us hope that god will condescend to piously help human soci-
ety threatened by so many dangers.

As a pledge of heavenly graces and of our benevolence, we impart
with great affection to you, venerable brethren, to the clergy and people
trusted to your care, the Apostolic benediction.

Given at Rome, near St. Peter, the 20th of April, 1884, the seventh
year of our pontificate.
   LEO, PP. XIII.


File from Hiram's Oasis
