Nobilissima Gallorum Gens by Pope Leo XIII
- Very Average Joe
- Oct 28, 2024
- 4 min read
Pope Leo XIII (b. 2 March 1810 – d. 20 July 1903), born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci, began his pontificate on 20 February 1878. His papacy is the fourth longest in the history of the Church. He is known for combating modern errors.
On 8 February 1884, he published the encyclical “Nobilissima Gallorum Gens”. Although the document is particularly about the state of France in light of the post-revolution landscape and the pervasive liberalist thought, it is generally applicable to the rest of Europe and the whole world today.
The document is short at approximately 3,400 words in 11 paragraphs and is essentially a few simple comments.
Leo XIII begins by reminding the audience that France has the title of “eldest daughter of the Church” given when King Clovis embraced Christianity. As such, she has received many benefits from God and has contributed much to the Catholic cause. However, liberalism ruins things.
But when the human mind, filled with the poison of new opinions, had begun, in the pride of an untempered liberty, to reject the authority of the Church, its downward course has been rapid and precipitate. For when the mortal poison of false doctrines had penetrated manners and customs themselves, society, to a great extent, came to fall away from Christianity. And in France the propagation of this plague was not a little promoted by certain philosophers in the last century, professors of a foolish wisdom, who set themselves to root up the foundations of Christian truth, and started a system of philosophy calculated the more vehemently to inflame the desires after unlimited license which had been already enkindled.
People can call it “philosophy” if they want but it is ultimately just an excuse for “unlimited license”.
Leo XIII then points out the first principle of putting God first. Lose that, and everything else will eventually be lost too.
The moment man ceases to be in fear of God, he is deprived of the most necessary basis of justice, without which—even in the opinion of the Pagan philosophers—society cannot exist; the authority of rulers will lose its weight, and the laws of the land their force. … These facts are to be found in history … when the impiety of the mob shook France to its very foundations, and Church and State perished in the same destruction.
He goes on in general terms about the problems such as severe and excessive punishment by the authorities which in turn may breed more revolt.
As for addressing the problem, Leo XIII goes back to the importance of the family and the formation of children, a responsibility imposed by Divine and Natural Law.
And first, as regards family life, it is of the highest importance that the offspring of Christian marriages should be thoroughly instructed in the precepts of religion; and that the various studies by which youth is fitted for the world should be joined with that of religion. To divorce these is to wish that youth should be neutral as regards its duties to God; a system of education in itself fallacious, and particularly fatal in tender years, for it opens the door to atheism, and closes it on religion.
Without this foundation, children will grow up without the ability to “endure the restraint of an upright life, they will not venture even to deny anything to their passions, and will easily be seduced into troubling the State”.
The latter half of the document contains comments about how the Church tried to work with the State to restore the relationship between it for mutual benefit and for the people after the “previous public commotions and terrors had subsided”.
In other words, if the State wants stability, it is in its own interest to work with the Church. This encyclical addresses to continuing threat to society in France.
Leo XIII concludes with a call to prayer and reparation given the sentiments at the time.
The unbridled license of speech and of the press, has many times outraged the Majesty of God; men are not wanting who not only ungratefully repudiate the benefits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, but even go so far in their impiety as to glory in not believing in the existence of God. To Catholics will fall the duty of making reparation by a great spirit of faith and piety for these perverse aberrations of mind and deed, and of publicly proving that they have nothing more at heart than the glory of God, nothing dearer than the religion of their forefathers.
As a concluding note, I will include the prophecy regarding France given by St Remigius of Reims (b. 437 – d. 535), on Christmas Eve of 496, before the baptism of King Clovis. Leo XIII does not mention this prophecy in the encyclical but he does mention Clovis so I thought it may be fitting to include it here.
The kingdom of France is predestined by God for the defense of the Roman Church, which is the only true Church of Christ. This kingdom shall one day be great among the kingdoms of the earth, and shall embrace all the limits of the Roman Empire, and shall submit all other kingdoms to its own sceptre. It shall last until the end of time. It shall be victorious and prosperous as long as it will remain faithful to the Holy Roman See, and will not be guilty of any of those crimes which ruin nations; but it shall be rudely punished every time that it will become unfaithful to its vocation.
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