"The Sillon is nobly solicitous for human dignity, but it understands that dignity in the manner of certain philoso­phers of whom the Church does not at all feel proud. The first element of that dignity is liberty, understood in the sense that, except in the matter of religion, each man is autonomous. From this funda­mental principle it draws the following conclusions: Today the people are in tutelage under an authority distinct from themselves; they ought to free themselves from it: political emancipation. They are dependent upon employers who hold their instruments of labor, exploit them, oppress them and degrade them; they ought to shake off the yoke: economic emancipation. Finally, they are ruled by a caste, called the directing caste, to whom their intellectual development gives an undue preponderance in the direction of affairs; they must break away from their domination: intellec­tual emancipation. The leveling down of conditions from this triple point of view will establish equality amongst men, and this equality is true human justice. A political and social organization founded upon this double basis, liberty and equal­ity (to which will soon be added frater­nity) - this is what they call democracy."

"...First of all, in politics the Sillon does not abolish authority, on the con­trary, it considers it necessary; but it wishes to divide it, or rather to multiply it in such a way that each citizen will become a kind of king...."

"Proportions being preserved, it will be the same in the economic order. Taken away from a particular class, the mastership will be so well multiplied that each workingman will himself become a sort of master...."

"We come now to the principal ele­ment, the moral element. . . . Snatched away from the narrowness of private interests, and raised up to the interests of the profession, and, even higher, to those of the whole nation, nay, higher still, to those of humanity (for the horizon of the Sillon is not bounded by the frontiers of the country, it extends to all men, even to the ends of the earth), the human heart, enlarged by the love of the common welfare, would embrace all comrades of the same profession, all compatriots, all men. Here is human greatness and nobil­ity, the ideal realized by the celebrated trilogy, liberty, equality, fraternity."

"Such, in short, is the theory - we might say the dream - of the Sillon" (Acta Apostolicae Sedis, Typis Poliglottis Vaticanis, Rome, 1910, vol. II, pp. 613-­615, English translation from The Amer­ican Catholic Quarterly Review, Oct. 1910).

Therefore, St. Pius X follows in the wake of his Predecessors, who ever since Pius VI had condemned the errors suggested by the motto of the French evolution.

In his Letter Decree of March 10, 1791, to Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld and to the Archbishop of Aix-en-Pro­vence on the principles of the Civil Constitution o the Clergy, Pius VI states:

"It [the French National Assembly] has established, as a right of man in society, this absolute liberty that not only assures him the right of not being dis­turbed in his religious opinion, but also of thinking, speaking, writing, and even publishing whatever he fancies about Religion. It proclaims that these mon­strosities derive and emanate from the equality and the liberty natural to all men. But who could think of anything more insane than to establish such equality and liberty among all, thus disregarding reason, with which nature has especially endowed the human race and which distinguishes it from the other animals? When created man and put him in the Paradise of delights, did He not at the same time threaten him with the

penalty of death if he were to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Did God not restrict his liberty right from the beginning with this first precept? And when he became guilty through his disobedience, did God not impose on him more precepts through Moses? And although God 'left it up to his free will' so that he could merit good or evil, He nevertheless gave him 'commandments and precepts so that if he would obey them, they might save him' (Eccl. XV, 15-16)."

"Where then, is this freedom of thought and action that thc decrees of the National Assembly attribute to man in society as being an immutable right of nature itself? ... Since man right from his infancy is obliged to be subject to his elders in order to be governed and instructed by them, and to order his life according to the norms of reason, of human nature and of Religion, then it is certain that this much trumpeted equal­ity and liberty among men is null and void from the moment of birth. 'Be subject of necessity' (Rom., XIII, 5). Therefore, so that men might gather in civil society, it was necessary to constitute a form of government in which the rights of freedom would be circumscribed by laws and by the supreme  powers of those who govern. Whence follows that which St. Augustine teaches with these words: 'It is therefore a general agreement of human society to obey its kings' (Confes­sions, book 111, chap. VIII, opera, ed. Maurin, p. 94). This is why the origin of this power should be sought less in a social contract than in God Himself, author of what is right and just"(Pii VI Pont. Max. Acta, Typis S. Congreg. de Propaganda Fide, Rome, 1871, vol. I, pp. 70-71)."

Pius VI repeatedly condemned the false conception of liberty and equality. In the Secret Consistory of June 17, 1793, confirming the words of the Encyc­lical Inscrutabilc Divinae Sapientiae of December 25. 1775, he stated:

"These most perverse philosophers go on to dissolve all links by which men are bound together and to their superiors and by which they are held to the fulfillment of their duties. They cry and proclaim ad nauseam that man is born free and subject to no one, and that therefore society is nothing more than a group of' stupid men whose imbecility bows to priests (who deceive them) and kings (who oppress then): in such a manner that concord between priesthood and empire is nothing but a monstrous conspiracy against man's innate liberty." And he went on: "These boastful protectors of mankind have linked this false and lying word Liberty with another equally fallacious word, Equality. That is, as though there should not be among men gathered in civil society, on account of the fact that the are subject to varied states of mind any move in differing and uncertain ways, each according to the impulse of his desire, someone who by authority and force would prevail, oblige and govern, as well as call to their duties those whose conduct is disorderly, so that society itself not fall under the rash and contradictory impetus of innumerable passions into anarchy, and dissolve completely. It is like harmony, composed of the consonance of many sounds and which, if not made up of appropriate balance of chords and voices, dissolves into disorderly and completely dissonant noises" (Pii VI Pont. Max., Acta., Typis S. Congreg. de Propaganda Fide, Rome 1871, vol. II, p. 26-27).

The leftist governments which have been in power in Afghanistan since 1978 gave rise to strong popular reactions which prompted Russian troops to enter the country the following year. Never­theless, the anti-Communist guerrillas control most of the country. One should also keep in mind the more or less disguised Marxist governments in power in various parts of the world.

"It [the SP] has drawn on a good part of the energy and positive aspirations of the explosion of May 1968 " (Program, p. 23).

"This diffuse extreme leftism (which appeared before the eyes of public opinion especially after May1968) has the merit of posing same troublesome questions to everybody, which is useful" (Documentation Socialiste, no. 5, p. 36).

''Thus, a new sensitivity in the very bosom of the left saw, in the 'Cultural Revolution' that arose in California during the sixties, and of which a certain ideology claiming to stem from [the revolution of] May 1968 was the French version, the coming of Leftist critique of Progress ... (Program, pp. 30-31).

"The idea of equality continues to be a new and powerful one" (Program, pp. 113-114).

"Not only the inspiration French socialism, but also that of Marx calls to mind the seizure of power by the immediate producers and the blotting out of the distinction between the work of those who direct and those who perform, between manual and intellectual work, and, after the Paris Commune, evokes the withering away of the State" ("Fifteen Theses," p. 6).

"A renewed questioning of the system of different pay scales should logically be accompanied by attaching a new value to manual labor and by developing a job rotation system" ("Fifteen Theses," p. 10).

"The socialist theoreticians have shown how the inequalities which the leading classes present as 'natural,' could be progressively overcome" ("Fifteen Theses," p. 10).

"The present division of labor will find itself progressively questioned, along with all that it implies by way of exploita­tion and alienation ... the hierarchical values established by capitalist society affecting all sectors of social life, including relations between men and women, children and adults, those who teach and those who are taught, workers and those on welfare, etc. " ("Fifteen Theses," p. 10).

"Prejudices will be done away with: let barriers and hierarchies between physi­cal, playful, and sports activities ... and the other so-called intellectual activi­ties be abolished" (Program, p. 302).

"-legal appropriation of the essential means of production by the collectivity;

"-planned economy:"

"-But ... there are so many features that make it clear that the Eastern societies have nothing to do with social­ism."

"These societies continue to be inegali­tarian ... The social division of labor has taken on forms that are not substantially different from those that exist in the capitalist countries ... "

"In the name of the proletariat, the rulers have a dictatorship ... over the proletariat ... Not only has the State not withered away, but it has become an extremely efficient machine of social and police control ..."

 "This is why, even if the values they affirm are those of socialism (and this, by the way, is important), we cannot con­sider the Eastern societies 'socialist' societies. The existence of different social classes and the maintenance of a coercive State apparatus ... are inherent to the very relations of production" (Pro­gram, pp. 67-69, 7 1).

"The crisis of authority is one of the most important dimensions of the crisis of advanced capitalism. [The Sorbonne Revolution of] May 1968 in France was the most spectacular revelation of this. The schoolmaster, the employer, one's father, one's husband, one's superior, whether greater or lesser, whether they have or want to acquire historic status: Here are the enemies from now on. Every [exercise of] power is more and more resented as manipulation . . . Any­one with the least authority is for that very reason contested, if not discred­ited. In the eyes of the Socialist Party the existence of this crisis is a positive development ... provided that it goes all the way to its final term: the coming of a new democracy. (Program, pp. 123-124).

"One thing is certain: We will not turn back; the traditional forms of authority will not be restored. And that is true particularly in the family; the contra­ceptive revolution, for example, has cre­ated conditions for a new equilibrium of the couple." (Program, p. 125).