Syllabus of Errors

A list of eighty propositions condemning the doctrines of liberalism attached to the encyclical Quanta Cura issued by Pius IX* on 8 December 1864. The first impulse toward the drawing up of the Syllabus came from the Provincial Council of Spoleto in 1849 when Gioacchino Vincenza Pecci, bishop of Perugia (later Leo XIII*) requested a condemnation of modern errors. He wanted to bring together under the form of a constitution the chief errors of the time. Preparation of the Syllabus began in 1852 and continued over a period of twelve years. In 1860 O.P. Gerbet issued a Pastoral Instruction in which he listed eighty-five errors. This list, which became the basis of the Syllabus, was modified into sixty- one theses and was approved by an assembly of bishops at Rome in 1862. The final stage of preparation began with the appointment of a new commission by Pius IX which incorporated thirty of the approved sixty-one theses in its formulation of the eighty errors to be condemned. The wording of