To the Venerable Brother Anthony Peter IX Patriarch of Cilicia of the Armenians1

THE POPE PIUS IX

Venerable Brother,
Salutation and Apostolic Benediction.

We have come to know with the greatest pain of heart that the ruinous masonic sects –
by the Roman Pontiffs, Our predecessors of venerable memory, and by We ourselves
also here condemned – are growing day by day in enormous and never enough hated
damage to souls, and they go to all lengths to contaminate with their deadly poison
especially the simple faithful, tearing them from the catholic religion and pushing them
to ruin. It does not escape You in fact, Venerable Brother, how many evils and harms
these abominable sects and the other perverted secret societies have brought to our
august religion and to civil society itself, and they still bring, because the men enrolled in
them stain themselves to corrupt, above all, morals with any shameful lie, with any
artifice and pestilent writings, and to propagate everywhere an execrable style of life, and
annihilate all divine and human law, and even our most holy religion – if it were possible
– and to overturn the foundations of civil society. Therefore, as soon as we have heard
that the contagion of such a fatal plague slithers through these oriental regions, without
any hesitation, through Our congregation propaganda fide delegated to the affairs of the
oriental churches we have sent the consistorial allocution held by Us the 25th of
September, 1865, translated in diverse oriental languages by some distinguished
ministers. You know however very well, Venerable Brother, the Letters – approved by
Us – sent to You and edited by the same congregation, in which it was declared that
every single christian, without any exception of place, time nation, or rite – and even the
orientals – is included and bound by the same by the same pontifical Constitutions, even
as regards the penalties, reported in the Constitutions themselves. Do not ignore the
decrees – these also approved by us – issued upon a matter of such great importance by
Our supreme Holy Office, inserted in the aforementioned Letters. Since, therefore, the
sects of such perdition, with the greatest ruin of souls, grow there more every day, we
cannot but invoke with urgency, because of Our care of the universal flock, Your
eminent pastoral vigilance so that you bring to bear all Your force to repress and push
back the impious designs and the movements of the masonic sects and other wicked
sects. For this reason, Venerable Brother, as much as You can work and obtain results
with prudence, toil, authority, leave nothing untried, so that the faithful, united to You,
detest these most cursed sects, find them repugnant, and flee with the greatest diligence
from their shameful attacks and the perverse speech of such wicked men. And do not
fail neither orally, nor through opportune writings to unmask and refute the many errors
of these sects, or to encourage the faithful themselves ceaselessly, and to exhort them so
that they remain solid in the profession and practice of the catholic religion and of its

1
The same letter was entitled “To the Venerable Brother Paul, Archbishop of Taron (or Daron), Apostolic Vicar of the
Patriarchate in Istanbul”, the owner of the transcribed text.
doctrine of salvation, day after day ever more stable and robust, and hold strongly to the
due filial piety, and reverence for Us, this Chair of Peter. And therefore, Venerable
Brother, enflame the zeal of these men of the Church and, most of all, the Pastors, so
that, mindful of their own vocation and of their ministry, they scrupulously fulfill all that
is called for by this sacred ministry of theirs, under Your guidance, and nourish and
fortify carefully and assiduously the faithful entrusted to them with the proclamation of
the divine Word and with the administration of the sacraments, and keep them far from
poisoned fields, carrying them towards those of salvation, and with all care distancing
them from the wicked designs of impious sects. And since we know, with incredible pain
in Our heart, that apart from the masonic boarding school already existing in
Constantinople now for some years there has been set up and instituted another great
boarding school of every religion and worship, from which every religious institution is
excluded, do not cease, Venerable Brother, to impose forcefully upon all parents (above
catholic christians) not ever to send their own children to such abominable schools,
since it is entirely illicit to frequent the same schools which demonstrate such a great
difference from our most holy faith and our morality. We do not in fact doubt that
through Your distinguished devotion with regard to catholicism and the salvation of
souls you would want most willingly and at the same time with the greatest diligence to
observe these Our desires and requests, and with ever greater speed, vigilance, and
constancy, in these very difficult times for christianity and civil society, fearlessly guard
the cause of God and of His holy Church and protect and care for the salvation of these
faithful. And finally we would like to persuade you of the fact that it is special the
benevolence with which we leave You, as undoubtable proof of which, receive the
Apostolic Benediction, which we lovingly impart to You from our deepest heart,
Venerable Brother, and to all the clerics, laity, and faithful entrusted to Your care.

Delivered in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, the 16th of July, 1868, the twenty-third year of Our Pontificate.
POPE PIUS IX