ntheism, naturalism, and absolute rationalism,
denouncing such opinions as that God is the world; that there is no God
other than Nature; that theological matters must be treated in the same
manner as philosophical ones, that the methods and principles by which
the old scholastic doctors cultivated theology are no longer suitable
to the demands of the age and the progress of science; that every man
is free to embrace and profess the religion he may believe to be true,
guided by the light of his reason; that it appertains to the civil
power to define what are the rights and limits in which the Church
may exercise authority; that the Church has not the right of availing
herself of force or any direct or indirect temporal power; that the
Church ought to be separated from the state and the state from the
Church; that it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion shall
be held as the only religion of the state, to the exclusion of all other
modes of worship; that persons coming to reside in Catholic countries
have a right to the public exercise of their own worship; that the
Roman pontiff can and ought to reconcile himself to, and agree with, the
progress of modern civilization. The Syllabus claims the right of the
Church to control public schools, and denies the right of the state in
that respect; it claims the control over marriage and divorce.

Such of these principles as the Council found expedient at present to
formularize, were set forth by it in "The Dogmatic Constitution of
the Catholic Faith." The essential points of this constitution, more
especially as regards the relations of religion to science, we have now
to examine. It will be understood that the following does not present
the entire document, but only an abstract of what appear to be its more
important parts.

CONSTITUTION OF CATHOLIC FAITH. This definition opens with a severe
review of the principles and consequences of the Protestant Reformation:

"The rejection of the divine authority of the Church to teach, and the
subjection of all things belonging to religion to the judgment of each
individual, have led to the production of many sects, and, as these
differed and disputed with each other, all belief in Christ was
overthrown in the minds of not a few, and the Holy Scriptures began to
be counted as myths and fables. Christianity has been rejected, and
the reign of mere Reason as they call it, or Nature, substituted; many
falling into the abyss of