This emancipation from the Christian faith poses mostly under the attractive and deceptive name of “modern progress.” Indeed, it has ever been the pretension of liberalism to look upon itself as the sole harbinger of civilization, to claim the guidance of intellectual life for its aim, and to stigmatize as a foe of culture any one that opposes the dissemination of its anti-Christian humanism. It is also an expert in giving to words a charm and an ambiguous meaning that deceive. Emancipation from religion is “progress” and “enlightenment.” Everything else is reactionary. Its infidelity is freedom of conscience and thought. Everything else is “bondage.” Only its secular schools, its civil marriage, its separation of Church and State are “modern.” Everything else is obsolete, hence no longer warranted. For the Church to defend her rights is arrogance; when the Church uses her God-given authority for the good of the faith, she practises intellectual oppression; the Catholic who lets himself be guided by his Church is called unpatriotic, bereft of his civil spirit. What striking contrast to the honesty in which the Church presents her doctrines frankly before the whole world, without disguise or artifice. The reason is that she has sufficient interior strength and truth to render it unnecessary for her to take refuge in disguise or present the truth in ambiguity. The clearest evidence of the Church’s hostility to culture is the condemnation of the 80th thesis of the _Syllabus_, so it is said. It is the thesis that the Pope can and must reconcile himself to, and compromise with, progress, liberalism, and modern civilization. This is a condemned proposition, hence the contrary is true: the Pope of Rome cannot, and must not, reconcile himself, nor compromise with, liberalism and modern civilization. Here we have the frankly admitted hostility against progress, education, and science—it is the watchword of the Papacy.