The Encyclical Letter is dated December 8, 1864.  It was drawn up by learned ecclesiastics, and subsequently debated at the Congregation of the Holy Office, then forwarded to prelates, and finally gone over by the pope and cardinals.

Encyclical letter and syllabus.  Many of the clergy objected to its condemnation of modern civilization.  Some of the cardinals were reluctant to concur in it.  The Catholic press accepted it, not, however, without misgivings and regrets.  The Protestant governments put no obstacle in its way; the Catholic were embarrassed by it.  France allowed the publication only of that portion proclaiming the jubilee; Austria and Italy permitted its introduction, but withheld their approval.  The political press and legislatures of Catholic countries gave it an unfavorable reception.  Many deplored it as likely to widen the breach between the Church and modern society.  The Italian press regarded it as determining a war, without truce or armistice, between the papacy and modern civilization.  Even in Spain there were journals that regretted “the obstinacy and blindness of the court of Rome, in branding and condemning modern civilization.”

It denounces that “most pernicious and insane opinion, that liberty of conscience and of worship is the right of every man, and that this right ought, in every well-governed state, to be proclaimed and asserted by law; and that the will of the people, manifested by public opinion (as it is called), or by other means, constitutes a supreme law, independent of all divine and human rights.”  It denies the right of parents to educate their children outside the Catholic Church.  It denounces “the impudence” of those who presume to subordinate the authority of the Church and of the Apostolic See, “conferred upon it by Christ our Lord, to the judgment of the civil authority.”  His Holiness commends, to the venerable brothers to whom the Encyclical is addressed, incessant prayer, and, “in order that God may accede the more easily to our and your prayers, let us employ in all confidence, as our mediatrix with him, the Virgin Mary, mother of God, who sits as a queen upon the right hand of her only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in a golden vestment, clothed around with various adornments.  There is nothing she cannot obtain from him.”

Convocation of the council.  Plainly, the principle now avowed by the papacy must bring it into collision even with governments which had heretofore maintained amicable relations with it.  Great dissatisfaction was manifested by Russia, and the incidents that ensued drew forth from his Holiness an allocution (November, 1866) condemnatory of the course of that government.  To this, Russia replied, by declaring the Concordat of 1867 abrogated.

Undeterred by the result of the battle of Sadowa (July, 1866), though it was plain that the political condition of Europe was now profoundly affected, and especially the relations of the papacy, the pope delivered an allocution (June 27, 1867), confirming the Encyclical and Syllabus.  He announced his intention of convoking an Oecumenical Council.