REPUTANTIBUS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO XIII ON THE
LANGUAGE QUESTION IN BOHEMIA
To
Our Venerable Brothers Theodore, Archbishop of Olomouc,
and the Archbishops and Bishops of Bohemia and Moravia.
As
We reflect often on the condition of your churches, it seems to Us that
at this moment nearly everywhere everything is full of fear, full of concern.
However, this situation is more serious in your case because, while Catholicism
is exposed to the hatred and cunning of external enemies, domestic issues
also divide it. For while heretics both openly and covertly endeavor to
spread error among the faithful, seeds of discord grow daily among Catholics
themselves-the surest means to hinder strength and break down constancy.
2.
Surely the strongest grounds for dissension, especially in Bohemia, are
to be found in the languages which each person, according to his origin,
employs. For it is implanted by nature that everyone wishes to preserve
the language inherited from his ancestors.
3.
To be sure, We have decided to refrain from settling this controversy.
Indeed one cannot find fault with the preservation of one's ancestral
tongue, if it is kept within defined limits. However, what is valid for
other private rights, must be held to apply here also: namely, that the
common good of the nation must not suffer from their
preservation. It is, therefore, the task of those who are in charge of
the state to preserve intact the rights of individuals, in such a way
that the common good of the nation be secured and allowed to flourish.
4.
As far as We are concerned, Our duty admonishes Us to take constant care
that religion, which is the chief good of souls and the source of all
other goods, not be endangered by controversies of this nature.
5.
Therefore we earnestly exhort your faithful, although of various regions
and tongues, to preserve that far more excellent kinship which is born
from the communion of faith and common sacraments. For whoever are baptized
in Christ, have one Lord and one faith; they are one body and one spirit,
insofar as they are called to one hope. It would be truly disgraceful
that those who are bound together by so many holy ties and are seeking
the same city in heaven should be torn apart by earthly reasons, rivaling
with one another, as the Apostle says, and hating one another. Therefore,
that kinship of souls which comes from Christ must constantly be inculcated
in the faithful and all partiality must be eradicated. "For greater
indeed is the paternity of Christ than that of blood: for the fraternity
of blood touches the likeness only of the body; the fraternity of Christ,
however, conveys unanimity of
heart and spirit, as is written: One was the heart and one the spirit
of the multitude of believers."(1)
6.
In this matter the holy clergy should surpass in example all others. Indeed,
it is at variance with their office to mingle in such dissensions. If
they should reside in places inhabited by people of different races or
languages, unless they abstain from any appearance of contention, they
may easily incur hatred and dislike from both sides. Nothing could be
more detrimental to the exercise of their sacred function than this. The
faithful, to be sure, should recognize in fact and practice that the ministers
of the Church are concerned only with the eternal affairs of souls and
do not seek what is theirs, but only what is Christ's.
7.
If, then, it is well known to all alike that the disciples of Christ are
recognized by the love that they have for one another, the holy clergy
must observe this same love mutually among themselves far more. For not
only are they thought, and deservedly so, to have drunk much more deeply
from the charity of Christ, but also because each one of them, in addressing
the faithful, ought to be able to use the words of the Apostle, "Be
imitators of me, as I am of Christ."(2)
8.
We can easily admit that this is very difficult in practice, unless the
elements of discord are erased from their souls at an early time when
they, who aspire to the clerical state, are formed in our seminaries.
Therefore, you must diligently see to it that the students in seminaries
early learn to love one another in a fraternal love and from a genuine
heart, as those born not from a corruptible seed but an incorruptible
one through the word of the living God.(3) Should arguments break out,
restrain them strongly and do not allow them to persist in any way; thus
those who are destined for the clergy, if they cannot be of one language
because of different places of origin, still may certainly be of one heart
and one spirit.
9.
From this union of wills, indeed, which must be conspicuous in the clerical
order, as we have already intimated, this advantage among others will
follow: that the ministers of the sacraments will more efficaciously warn
the faithful not to exceed the limits in preserving and vindicating the
rights proper to each race, or by excessive
partisanship not to do violence to justice and overlook the common advantages
of the state. For we think that this, according to the circumstances of
your various regions, should be the principal task of priests, to exhort
the faithful, in season and out, to love one another; they should warn
them constantly that he is not worthy of the name of Christian who does
not fulfill in spirit and action the new command given by Christ that
we love one another as He has loved us.
10.
Certainly, he does not fulfill it, who thinks that charity pertains only
to those who are related in tongue or race. For if, as Christ says, you
love those who love you, do not the publicans do so? and if you salute
your brothers only, do not the pagans do so?(4) For to be sure a characteristic
of Christian charity is that it extends equally to all; for, as the Apostle
warns, there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for there is the
same Lord of all, rich to all who invoke him.(5)
11.
May God, who is Love, kindly grant that all be united in their thoughts
and in their convictions, thinking the same and having no contention;
grant that in humility they may think each other better than themselves,
each not looking to his own interests, but to those of others.
12.
May the Apostolic blessing, which we grant most lovingly in the Lord,
to you, Venerable Brothers, and the faithful committed to each of you,
be a token of this and also of Our benevolence.
Given
in Rome at St. Peter's, 20 August 1901, in the 24th year of Our Pontificate.
REFERENCES:
1. St.
Maximus, among the sermons of St. Augustine, 100.
2. Phil 3.17.
3. Pt 1.22 f.
4. Mt 5.46 f.
5. Rom 10.12.
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