Encyclicals to the French: Vehementer Nos, Gravissimo Officii Munere, Une Fois Encore, Notre Charge Apostolique

This edition contains the four encyclicals that Pope St. Pius X promulgated to the French people: Vehementer Nos (On the French Law of Separation) , Gravissimo Officii Munere (On French Associations of Worship) , Une Fois Encore (On the Separation of Church and State) , and Notre Charge Apostolique (On the Errors of the Sillonists) . In 1906 and 1907, Pope Pius X addressed a series of three encyclicals to the French people on the topic of the Separation of Church and State. Specifically, these encyclicals were occasioned by the French government's 1905 unilateral abrogation of the Concordat of 1801, an agreement which had recognized and protected the special status of the Catholic Church in France. Although addressed specifically to the French people, these encyclicals are widely applicable in that they make clear the teaching of St. Pius on a number of Church/State issues. Three years later, in 1910, Pope St. Pius X issued Notre Charge Apostolique, an encyclical condemning Le Sillon, a burgeoning social and political movement, which had been formed by French Catholic layman Marc Sangnier in 1894. Like the other three encyclicals in this volume, this letter has broad application to social movements in the Catholic Church. In response to this encyclical, Sangnier dissolved Le Sillon.