In December 1864 Pius IX sends the bishops the encyclical Quanta Cura with an attached Syllabus of Errors: eighty condemned propositions drawn from his earlier acts, rejecting religious indifferentism, the separation of church and state, and the proposition that the Roman pontiff ought to reconcile himself with progress and modern civilization. The Syllabus becomes the emblem of the nineteenth century church's confrontation with liberalism.
Tagged: Catholic
The Event
- Date
- 1864 (exact)
- Era
- Revolution and the Nineteenth Century; Standard periodization of Catholic history
- Location
- Rome; today Rome, Italy
- Traditions
- Catholicism
- Streams
- Catholic
- Key figures
- Pius IX
- Key texts
- Quanta Cura, Syllabus of Errors
Primary Sources
- Pius IX, Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors, 1864.
Secondary Sources
- Chadwick, Owen. A History of the Popes, 1830-1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.
- Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
- Hastings, Adrian, ed. A World History of Christianity. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.
- MacCulloch, Diarmaid. A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. London: Penguin, 2009.
- O'Malley, John W. Trent: What Happened at the Council. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Provenance: HIST-1339; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-30.
Related on This Site
Library
Catholic Culture
An online library, dictionary, and document search representing more than 2,000 years of Catholic scholarship and teaching.
Library
Clerus.org / BIBLIACLERUS
The electronic library of the Congregation for the Clergy: the Bible in many languages with commentaries, and the documents of the Church.
Library
Corpus Thomisticum
The complete works of St. Thomas Aquinas, with manuscripts, bibliography, and research tools for Thomistic study.
Library
FORMED
A Catholic streaming platform with video studies, movies, audio programs, and ebooks, offered by subscription through parishes and directly.
Library
Verbum
A Catholic digital library with interactive study tools and packaged collections of Scripture, the Fathers, and Catholic scholarship.
Prayer or Creed
Glory Be (Gloria Patri)
A short doxology praising the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, used across Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant worship.
Prayer or Creed
Hail Mary
A prayer to the Virgin Mary built from the angel's greeting in Luke 1, asking for her intercession.
World View
The Catholic World View
Catholic Christianity confesses one triune God and receives his revelation through Scripture and Tradition, guarded by the Church Christ founded and its apostolic teaching office.