Quanta Cura
Quanta Cura was a
Papal encyclical issued by
Pope Pius IX on
December 8,
1864, which condemned
religious freedom and
freedom of speech. It specifically marked for condemnation the "insanity" that:
- "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way."
The encyclical was prompted by the September Convention of 1864, an agreement between the
Kingdom of Italy and the
Second French Empire of
Napoleon III, undertaken as a part of the
Italian Risorgimento, under which
France was to withdraw its army from
Rome, which they had previously occupied in order to prevent Italy from capturing the city and completing the unification of Italy.
Quanta Cura is remembered mostly because of its annex, the Syllabus of Errors, which condemned a number of political propositions involving democracy, socialism, and freedom of speech and religion.
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