'They [the Modernists] exercise all their ingenuity in
diminishing the force and falsifying the character of tradition, so as
to rob it of all its weight. But for Catholics the second Council of
Nicea will always have the force of law, where it condemns those who
dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the
ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind . . . or
endeavour by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate
traditions of the Catholic Church; and Catholics will hold for law,
also, the profession of the fourth Council of Constantinople: We
therefore profess to conserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Church by the Holy and most illustrious
Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by every
one of those divine interpreters the Fathers and Doctors of the Church.
Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV. and Pius IX., ordered the
insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: I
most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical
traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.'
