Editing Syllabus of Errors (section)

==Reactions==

===Non-Catholics===
In 1874, the British [[Leader of the Opposition (United Kingdom)|Leader of the Opposition]] [[William Ewart Gladstone|William Gladstone]] published a tract entitled ''[[The Vatican Decrees in Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance|The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation]]'', in which he said that after the ''Syllabus''

{{blockquote|no one can now become [Rome's] convert without renouncing his moral and mental freedom, and placing his civil loyalty and duty at the mercy of another.}}

===Catholics===
Catholic [[Christian apologetics|apologists]] such as [[Félix Dupanloup]] and [[John Henry Newman]] said that the ''Syllabus'' was widely misinterpreted by readers who did not have access to, or did not bother to check, the original documents of which it was a summary. The propositions listed had been condemned as erroneous opinions ''in the sense and context in which they originally occurred''; without the original context, the document appeared to condemn a larger range of ideas than it actually did. Thus, it was asserted that no critical response to the ''Syllabus'' could be valid, if it did not take into account the cited documents and their context.<ref name=newman>{{cite web |last1=Newman |first1=John |title=Newman Reader - Letter to the Duke of Norfolk - Section 7 |url=https://www.newmanreader.org/works/anglicans/volume2/gladstone/section7.html |website=www.newmanreader.org}}</ref> Newman wrote:
<blockquote>
"The Syllabus then has no dogmatic force; it addresses us, not in its separate portions, but as a whole, and is to be received from the Pope by an act of obedience, not of faith, that obedience being shown by having recourse to the original and authoritative documents, (Allocutions and the like,) to which the Syllabus pointedly refers. Moreover, when we turn to those documents, which are authoritative, we find the Syllabus cannot even be called an echo of the Apostolic Voice; for, in matters in which wording is so important, it is not an exact transcript of the words of the Pope, in its account of the errors condemned, just as would be natural in what is an index for reference."<ref>[[Francis A. Sullivan]], ''Creative Fidelity'', {{ISBN|0-8091-3644-9}}, p. 143.</ref>
</blockquote>
As the English Catholic historian [[E. E. Y. Hales]] explained, concerning item #77: <blockquote>"[T]he Pope is not concerned with a universal principle, but with the position in a particular state at a particular date. He is expressing his 'wonder and distress' (no more) that in a Catholic country (Spain) it should be proposed to disestablish the Church and to place any and every religion upon a precisely equal footing. [...] Disestablishment and toleration were far from the normal practice of the day, whether in Protestant or in Catholic states."<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Hales|first1=E.E.Y.|title=THE CATHOLIC CHURCH in the MODERN WORLD: A Survey from the French Revolution to the Present|publisher=Doubleday|year=1958}}</ref> </blockquote>Newman points out that this item refers to the 26 July 1855 allocution ''Nemo vestrum''. At this time, Spain had been in violation of its [[Concordat of 1851]] with the Holy See (implemented 1855).<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04196a.htm Kelly, Leo, and Benedetto Ojetti. "Concordat." The Catholic Encyclopedia] Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 10 January 2019 {{PD-notice}}</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160423053451/https://www.osv.com/osvnewsweekly/byissue/article/tabid/735/artmid/13636/articleid/16503/syllabus-of-errors-still-relevant-150-years-later.aspx Shaw, Russell. "Syllabus of Errors still relevant 150 years later", ''OSV Weekly'', 25 November 2014]</ref>