Words of Cardinal Pie

Cadinal Pie

(1815-1880)

Louis-Edouard Cardinal Pie, Bishop of Poitiers, is certainly one of the greatest figures of the Church of France in the XIX century. He was the champion of orthodoxy against the error of liberalism and rationalism and a great leader in the battle against the Revolution. He wrote two synodal instructions against “the errors of the present days and of philosophy” that would become a basis for the Encyclical Letter Quanta cura and the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX. He was also a great artisan of the proclamation of the dogma of Pontifical Infallibility.
In France, he contributed in a large measure to the restoration of religious life. “He created many parishes, established in his seminary a canonical faculty of theology, founded for the missions of the diocese the Oblates of Saint Hilary, and brought the Jesuits to Poitiers and the Benedictines to Solesmes and Ligugé.” (Catholic Encyclopedia by Herbemann)
In 1879, Leo XIII created him Cardinal, just one year before he passed away. Pope Saint Pius X was a fervent admirer of Cardinal Pie and paid a tribute to him when he gratified the Cathedral of Poitiers with the title of minor basilica in 1912. Referring to “Saint Hilary, the intrepid champion of the divinity of Christ against the Arians” ,the Pope added: “ but alongside of him it is sweet to remember Louis-Edouard Pie, cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, who, like a second Hilary-alter Hilarius-avenged the integrity of the Faith against the modern Arians by his victorious eloquence.” We know that the writings of Cardinal Pie were among the favorites readings of Saint Pius X.

Here are some excerpts of his works, that are still relevant today.

"Hear this maxim, O you, Catholics full of temerity, who so quickly adopt the ideas and the language of your time, you who speak of reconciling the faith and of reconciling the Church with the modern spirit and with the new law. And you who accept with so much confidence the most dangerous pursuits of what our age so pridefully labels "Science," see to what extent you are straying from the program set out by the great Apostle, "O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding the profane novelties of words, and oppositions of knowledge falsely so-called" (I Tim. 6:20). But take heed. With such temerities, one is soon led farther than he first had thought. And in placing themselves on the slope of profane novelties—in obeying the currents of so-called science—many have lost the Faith.
Have you not often been saddened, and taken fright, my venerable brothers, on hearing the language of certain men, who believe themselves still to be sons of the Church, men who still practice occasionally as Catholics and who often approach the Lord's Table? Do you still believe them to be sons, do you still believe them to be members of the Church, those who, wrapping themselves in such vague phrases as modern aspirations and the force of progress and civilization, proclaim the existence of a "consciousness of the laity," of a secular and political conscience opposed to the "conscience of the Church," against which they assume the right to react, for its correction and renewal? Ah! So many passengers, and even pilots, who, believing themselves to be yet in the barque, and playing with profane novelties and the lying science of their time, have already sunk and are in the abyss. "

(Homily , nov 25th 1864)

"Is not ours an age of miss lived lives, of unmanned men? Why?...Because Jesus Christ has disappeared. Wherever the people are true Christians, there are men to be found in large numbers, but everywhere and always, if Christianity wilts, the men wilt. Look closely, they are no longer men but shadows of men. Thus what do you hear on all sides today. The world is dwindling away, for lack of men; the nations are perishing for scarcity of men, for the rareness of men...I do believe: there are no men where there is no character; there is no character where there are no principles, doctrines, stands taken; there are no stands taken, no doctrines, no principles, where there is no religious faith and consequently no religion of society. Do what you will: only from God you will get men".

(Homily for Christmas 1871)

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit."

"Do you know why during the past half century we have seen perish among us every form of government, including even that to which we are returning today? I am going to tell you. All these forms in which society has dressed itself have perished because, beneath the forms, a soul was lacking. Now, it may be wonderfully provided with joints and a network of muscles, but a body without a soul is a cadaver, and it is the lot of a cadaver eventually to fall apart. The soul of every human society is belief, doctrine, religion, God. Our modern societies have been too long divorced from God.” (1848)

"Neither in His Person, nor in the exercise of His rights, can Jesus Christ be divided, dissolved, split up; in Him the distinction of natures and operations can never be separated or opposed; the divine cannot be incompatible to the human, nor the human to the divine. On the contrary, it is the peace, the drawing together, the reconciliation; it is the very character of union which has made the two things one: 'He is our peace, Who hat made both one. . .' (Eph. 2:14). This is why St. John told us: 'every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God. And this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh: and is now already in the world' (1 John 4:3; cf. also 1 John 2:18, 22; 2 John: 7). When I hear certain talk being spread around, certain pithy statements (i.e., 'Separation of Church and State,' for one, and the enigmatic axiom 'A free Church in a free State,' for another) prevailing from day to day, and which are being introduced into the heart of societies, the dissolvent by which the world must perish, I utter this cry of alarm: Beware the Antichrist !"

"France will be Christian, or she will not be!"