Quo graviora (1833)

Quo graviora is an encyclical by Pope Gregory XVI. , With her he was directed on October 4, 1833, the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of the Rhineland and criticized the wayward state in this region.

Initially called Gregory XVI. disobedience to the papal authority as a serious disease that had spread to the Catholic Church. He then took it also as an opportunity to point out that his predecessor Pius VIII had already called for the rights of the Church in a letter dated June 1830. In this letter, no response was now after three years, takes place, as they have called Pius VIII.

The complaints of the Pope were directed primarily against the priest Franz -Ludwig Mersy. This had issued the Badische church sheet together with Protestant priests and actively turned to the " Badische Revolution". In several articles he argued for reform within the church and wrote critical memoranda. Particular aversion earned Mersy with Scripture " Are reforms in the Catholic Church needed " ( 1833), which was mentioned as examples in this encyclical.

The demand of the Pope was to urge all clergy from Offenburg to a public synod, in which under the leadership of the Archbishop of Freiburg reform issues should be discussed. At the same time obedience to ecclesiastical authority should be demonstrated. Finally took the Pope his demand in a number of bullets from the canonical laws, council papers of Trent and internal church rules together and explained that it was the task of the bishops and ultimately the task of the Holy See to initiate reforms, therefore no layman could this power of to call out.