Quibus quantisque malis

Pius IX

Quibus quantisque malis is a lengthy papal allocution delivered by Pope Pius IX to the Consistory of Cardinals, assembled in Gaeta, south of Rome, on 20 April 1849, discussing the recent political atmosphere.

Background

Pius IX was elected Pope in June 1846, during a time of political agitation which ultimately led to the brief Roman Republic of 1849. One of his first acts was to declare an amnesty for all the political prisoners held in the papal jails. He fled from Rome to Gaeta on 25 November 1848.

Contents

In Quibus quantusque, Pius gives a retrospective analysis of his first three years as Pope. He discusses some of the most important events, his intentions and the maneuverings of certain revolutionary elements who had worked to capitalize on them. Revolutionaries in Rome had exploited Pius IX's amnesty concessions, and continuously stirred up the populace to exert pressure in order to obtain additional ones.

And it escapes no one that many who had been generously given that pardon not only did not change their thoughts at all, as We were hoping, but instead, as they persisted each day more bitterly in their designs and machinations, there was nothing that they left undone, nothing that they did not dare, nothing that they did not try, to shake and overthrow the civil Principate of the Roman Pontiff and his government, as they had already been planning for a long time, and at the same time, they brought a most bitter war against Our Most Holy Religion.

Significance

While the discourse does not specifically mention Freemasonry, Hermann Gruber, writing in the historical Catholic Encyclopedia, lists it among the papal pronouncements against Freemasonry, and it is mentioned by masonic sources as equating Freemasonry with socialism and communism.

An English translation has been published online.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ It is 7350 words in length.

References

  1. ↑ IntraText Digital Library, Quibus, quantisque, accessed on 28 October 2026
  2. ↑ "Pio IX".
  3. ↑ Spada, Giuseppe, Storia della Rivoluzione di Roma dal 1 giugno 1846 al 15 Iuglio 1848, Florence 1868-69, vol. Ill, p. 3879
  4. ↑ Salvatorelli, Luigi, Pius IX e il Risorgimento, in Spiriti e figure del Risorgimento, Le Monnier, Florence 1961, pp. 253-257
  5. ↑ Pope Pius IX, "Quibus quantisque"
  6. ↑ Section VIII. Action of State and Church Authorities, in Masonry (Freemasonry) in the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913, and Condemnation of Freemasonry by Church and State, in 'Freemasonry', the New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1969, cf. Stefano Solari, Can a Catholic be liberal? Roman Catholicism and liberalism in a political economy perspective (1823-1971), The Journal of Philosophical Economics, XVI (Annual issue) 2023, page 10: "In the allocution Quibus Quantisque ... we can find a further attack on Free Masons".
  7. ↑ Snoek, J. A. M. (December 23, 2011). Initiating Women in Freemasonry: The Adoption Rite. BRILL. ISBN 9789004219342.