Card.

Ratzinger:
Gaudium et Spes is a counter-Syllabus
Writing about the constitution Gaudium et spes, Card. Joseph Ratzinger described the new
approach of the Conciliar Church toward the Modern World born from the French Revolution.
The previous attitude of the Church was in accordance with the norms of Pope Pius IX listed
in the Syllabus, which taught Catholics to combat the Liberalism of modernity.
Instead, Gaudium et spes advised Catholics to accept the Modern World as it is certainly a
revolution regarding the previous teaching. Hence Ratzinger approvingly defined Gaudium et
spes as a counter-Syllabus.
Top right is a picture of the books cover; at right, photocopies of the French text. Below, we
present our translation.
If one is looking for a global diagnosis of the text [of Gaudium et spes], one could say that
it (along with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) is a revision of the Syllabus
of Pius IX, a kind of counter-Syllabus .
Undoubtedly, many things have changed since then. The new ecclesiastical policy of Pius
XI established a certain openness toward the liberal conception of the State. In a silent
but persevering combat, Exegesis and Church History increasingly adopted the
postulates of liberal science; on the other hand, in face of the great political upheavals of
the 20th century, Liberalism was obliged to accept notable corrections.
This happened because, first in central Europe, conditioned by the situation, the
unilateral dependence on the positions taken by the Church through the initiatives of Pius
IX and Pius X against the new period of History opened by the French Revolution was to
a large extent corrected via facti. But a fundamental new document regarding relations
with the world as it had been since 1789 was still lacking.
In reality, the mentality that preceded the revolution still reigned in the countries with
strong Catholic majorities; today almost no one denies that the Spanish and Italian
concordats [accords between Church and State] tried to conserve too many things from a
conception of the world that for a long time had not corresponded to reality. Likewise,
almost no one can deny that this dependence on an obsolete conception of relations
between the Church and State was matched by similar anachronisms in the domain of
education and the attitude taken toward the modern historical-critical method .
Let us content ourselves here with stating that the text [of Gaudium et spes] plays the role
of a counter-Syllabus to the measure that it represents an attempt to officially reconcile
the Church with the world as it had become after 1789. On one hand, this visualization
alone clarifies the ghetto complex that we mentioned before. On the other hand, it permits
us to understand the meaning of this new relationship between the Church and the
Modern World. World is understood here, at depth, as the spirit of modern times. The

consciousness of being a detached group that existed in the Church viewed this spirit as
something separate from herself and, after the hot as well as cold wars were over, she
sought dialogue and cooperation with it.
(Les Principes de la Theologie Catholique Esquisse et Materiaux, Paris: Tequi, 1982, pp.
426-427).