…it is well for them to know that the Catholic world, neither now nor hereafter neither at the decease of Pius IX., nor yet at any time—will yield one shadow of the inalienable right of the Sovereign Pontiffs to the capital of Christendom; nor will it for a moment suffer the denial of its own supreme right and duty to intervene for the protection of the Holy See. The moral cordon of justice and order will be always drawn around it; and the right of execution will never depart from the Catholic world.

All I can do is to touch the mere outline of what would follow upon the dissolution, if that could be, of the Temporal Power of the Pontiffs. But first let me once for all, or rather once more for the thousandth time, sweep away the absurdity imputed to us, day by day, that we make the Temporal Power a part of Christianity, and that if it were overthrown, Christianity would fall with it. This surpasses even the extravagance of controversy. We do believe, indeed, that the dissolution of the twofold authority of the Pontiff would strike out the key stone of Christendom; that is, of the twofold order of Christianity and civilization which for a thousand years has sustained the commonwealth of Europe. We believe that then Christianity would stand alone, on its own divine and imperishable basis; and that civilization without Christianity would return to the natural order, and to the spiritual death out of which Christianity raised it to life.

[…] We affirm also that this retrogression and divorce of the spiritual and civil societies of the world would desecrate the civil powers of the world. They would cease to recognise, as they have already to a great extent, the Christian law, the unity of faith, worship, communion, or authority, as principles of their public order. […]

[…] The two powers, spiritual and temporal, are providentially united in Rome that they may be separated everywhere else in the kingdoms of the world. […]