Greater Dangers

8. There are, however, as We have warned you, still greater dangers threatening the ancestral faith of the Hungarians. The enemies of the Catholic faith are by no means concealing their intention to strive with all their most harmful weapons to accomplish the daily deterioration of the Church and the Catholic faith. We, therefore, exhort you, more urgently than ever before, to spare neither effort nor labor to ward off such peril from your flock and from your native land. It must be your primary care that all your people, strengthened by your authority and example, undertake with courage and zeal the cause of religion and always defend it firmly. Very often it happens, indeed, and we shall speak frankly, that some Catholics at the very time when they should be protecting and vindicating the rights of the Church, led by a certain appearance of human prudence, either turn away from the issue or prove themselves too timid or too submissive. It is obvious that this procedure opens the way to grave danger especially if it involves those in authority or those most influential in shaping public opinion. More than the fact that they are unfaithful to the just duty owed their office, they very often cause scandal and prevent the harmony that results in unity of thought and action. Nothing, of course, could be more welcome to the enemies of the Catholic faith than this apathy or disagreement of Catholics. All too often, by avoiding bold arguments, they allow the enemy to effect greater injustices with ease.