ver of truth is by search
attained, the Church acknowledges as a certain token of the Divine mind.
And since there is in the world nothing which can take away belief in
the doctrines divinely handed down and many things which confirm this,
and since every finding of truth may impel man to the knowledge or
praise of God Himself, therefore whatever may happen to extend the range
of knowledge, the Church will always willingly and joyfully accept; and
she will, as is her wont in the case of other departments of knowledge,
studiously encourage and promote those also which are concerned with the
investigation of nature. In which studies, if the mind finds anything
new, the Church is not in opposition; she fights not against the search
after more things for the grace and convenience of life--nay, a very foe
to inertness and sloth, she earnestly wishes that the talents of men
should, by being cultivated and exercised, bear still richer fruits; she
affords incitements to every sort of art and craft, and by her own
virtue directing by her own perfection all the pursuits of those things
to virtue and salvation, she strives to prevent man from turning aside
his intelligence and industry from God and heavenly things.

But these things, although full of reasonableness and foresight, are not
so well approved of at this time, when States not only refuse to refer
to the laws of Christian knowledge, but are seen even to wish to depart
each day farther from them. Nevertheless, because truth brought to light
is wont of its own accord to spread widely, and by degrees to pervade
the minds of men, we, therefore, moved by the consciousness of the
greatest, the most holy, that is the Apostolic obligation, which we owe
to all the nations, those things which are true, freely, as we ought, we
do speak, not that we have no perception of the spirit of the times, or
that we think the honest and useful improvements of our age are to be
repudiated, but because we would wish the highways of public affairs to
be safer from attacks, and their foundations more stable, and that
without detriment to the true freedom of the peoples; for amongst men
the mother and best guardian of liberty is truth: "_The truth shall make
you free._" (John viii. 32).

Therefore at so critical a juncture of events, Catholic men, if, as it
behooves them, they will listen to us, will easily see what are their
own and each other's duties in matters of _opinion_ as well as of
_acti