Atheists are not formidable enemies of the Church.

They do not count as adversaries.

They cannot raise a Church against her, and they do not dream of doing so.

Atheists have existed at all times among the heads and princes of the Church, and many of them have rendered signal services to the Papacy.

On the other hand, whoever does not submit strictly to ecclesiastical discipline and breaks away from tradition upon a single point, whoever sets up a faith against the faith, an opinion, a practices against the accepted opinion and the common practice, is a factor of disorder, a menace of peril, and must be extirpated.