Etsi multa (Latin for "Although many [grievous and painful occurrences]"; the full incipit is Etsi multa luctuosa) is a papal encyclical issued by Pope Pius IX on 21 November 1873. Its subtitle is On the Church in Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. It is numbered as the 34th of the 41 encyclicals of Pius IX's pontificate.
Background and addressees
The letter is addressed to "all Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ordinaries in favor and communion with the Apostolic See." It was issued in the context of the Capture of Rome (1870), the Kulturkampf in the German Empire, and anticlerical legislation in several Swiss cantons.
Contents
The encyclical surveys what Pius IX characterized as three contemporary campaigns against the Catholic Church:
- Italy – Following the incorporation of Rome and the Papal States into the Kingdom of Italy, the encyclical complains of the suppression of the Pontifical Gregorian University and of restrictions on the Church's institutions and property.
- Germany – It criticizes the Kulturkampf, in particular Prussian legislation subjecting the education and appointment of clergy to state control, and the establishment of a royal tribunal for ecclesiastical affairs. It also condemns the movement of the so-called "Old Catholics" and declares the election and consecration of Joseph Hubert Reinkens as bishop illicit, null, and sacrilegious, imposing excommunication on him and his supporters.
- Switzerland – It condemns the expulsion of Gaspard Mermillod, Vicar Apostolic of Geneva, and laws in Geneva, Solothurn, Bern, Basel-Landschaft, Aargau, and Zürich that subjected ecclesiastical appointments and administration to civil authority and popular election. It also protests the removal of sixty-nine priests in the Jura region.
In its closing sections the document attributes much of this opposition to secret societies, naming Freemasonry, and states that pontifical condemnations apply not only to Masonic groups in Europe but also in America and elsewhere. It notes that it does not treat conditions in America at length, deferring the subject to a later occasion.
Significance
Etsi multa is frequently cited in historical studies of Church–state relations in the 1870s, and its condemnations of Freemasonry are referenced in later discussions of Catholic documents on that subject. The letter was issued from Rome at St. Peter's, dated the 21st of November 1873, in the 28th year of Pius IX's pontificate.
