Quo graviora (1833)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quo graviora is an encyclical from Pope Gregory XVI. , with her he addressed himself to the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Rhineland on October 4, 1833 and criticized the stubborn condition in this region.

Initially, Gregory XVI. disobedience to papal authority as a serious disease that has spread in the Catholic Church . So he took this as an opportunity to point out that his predecessor Pius VIII had already warned the rights of the church in a letter from June 1830. After three years there had been no reply to this letter, as requested by Pius VIII.

The Pope's complaints were directed primarily against the priest Franz-Ludwig Mersy . Together with Protestant clergymen, he published the Badisches Kirchenblatt and actively participated in the “Baden Revolution”. In several articles he advocated reforms within the church and wrote critical memoranda . Mersy reaped particular reluctance with the writing Are Reforms in the Catholic Church Necessary (1833), which was mentioned as an example in this encyclical.

The Pope's demand was to call on all clergy from Offenburg to a public synod , in which the reform issues were to be discussed under the direction of the Archbishop of Freiburg . At the same time obedience to ecclesiastical authority should be demonstrated. Ultimately, the Pope summarized his demand in several lists from the canonical laws , council documents of Trent and internal church regulations and declared that it is the task of the bishops and, in the last instance, the task of the Holy See to initiate reforms, and therefore no lay person can exercise this power of your own accord.

Web links