Pope Pius X publishes the encyclical Vehementer Nos.

Vehementer Nos is an encyclical issued by Pope Pius X on February 11, 1906, in response to the French law of 1905 that established the separation of church and state. In this document, Pius X strongly condemned the law, asserting that it violated the rights of the Catholic Church by subjecting it to state control and undermining its divine authority. He reaffirmed the Church’s independence from secular powers and emphasized that the Church was a perfect society with the right to govern itself without state interference. The encyclical also criticized the state’s confiscation of Church property and the dissolution of religious institutions, warning that such measures would lead to moral and social decline. Pius X urged French Catholics to remain steadfast in their faith and to resist secularist policies that sought to weaken the Church’s influence in society. Vehementer Nos thus reflected the Vatican’s broader struggle against modernist and secularist trends in the early 20th century.