The War Upon Religion / Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Anti-Christianism in Europe

by Francis A. Cunningham

In accordance with the prescriptions of the Concordat the Holy Father began at once the execution of that article which required the resignation of the various sees by their actual or rightful incumbents. The brief dispatched by the Pope to all the bishops of France, whether resident in that country or living in foreign lands, necessitated that an answer be received within ten days. Fourteen prelates residing in London declared, on September 27th, that they could not consent for the present to his demands, at least without having been heard. Twenty-six bishops residing in Germany answered in the same terms on October 28th. On January 21st the bishops who had taken refuge in England addressed to the Holy Father a new refusal protesting "against the attempts which had been made or which might be made against the rights of the Most Christian King, their Sovereign Lord, rights which the laws of the Church commanded the first among the Pontiffs to respect religiously, and the defence of which was for the French bishops a duty rendered sacred by their oaths of fidelity from which no power could release them, and whose violation would be a criminal act." Some hesitation was likewise manifested by the constitutional bishops resident in France, a hesitation, however, which under the tactful management of Cardinal Caprara, the new Legate a Latere at Paris, was finally overcome.

The Holy Father, after waiting patiently for several months for a favorable answer to his demands, resolved at length to act notwithstanding all protestations. In the Bull, Qui Christi Domini, he declared that he derogated to the consent of the bishops who had refused to sign their resignation, he interdicted in them every act of jurisdiction, he abolished the old dioceses existing in France, and erected sixty new sees in their place.

In the meanwhile the Concordat had been signed by Bonaparte, on September 10th, 1801. It yet, however, required the ratification of the governmental bodies before becoming law. Though signed on July 15th, 1801, it was not until April of the following year that this desired consummation was effected. It was finally ratified on April 8th, by the Corps Legislatif. The reason for the delay became apparent upon this occasion, for then there appeared in conjunction with the Concordat, and as if forming a part of it, a series of laws entitled Organic Articles, which had been elaborated during those nine months without the knowledge of the Pope, just as their publication was now effected without his cognizance. The purport of these latter articles was to destroy or contradict in great part the concessions granted by the Concordat. Rome has never ceased to protest against them, and to demand their abrogation or modification. In 1804 she seemed to have succeeded, deceived by the promises of Napoleon at a moment when he desired the aid of the Holy Father at the ceremonial of his coronation; in 1817, when a new Concordat was attempted, the partial abrogation of these Articles was one of the stipulations; their suppression was again proposed in 1848; and again in 1853. They remained, however, in spite of every effort, a constant obstacle to the fulfilment of the concessions of the Concordat and a source of perpetual trouble to the Church in France.

TEXT OF THE ORGANIC ARTICLES.

Organic Articles of the Convention of the 26 Messidor, Year IX.

Article 1. No bull, brief, rescript, decree, mandate, provision, signature serving for provision, nor other documents expedited by the Court of Rome, even though they concern private individuals can be received, printed, or otherwise put in force without the authorization of the Government.

Article 2. No individual styling himself a nuncio, legate, vicar, or commissary Apostolic, or who makes use of any other determining title can, without the same authorization, exercise upon French soil, or elsewhere, any function relative to the affairs of the Gallican church.

Article 3. The decrees of the foreign synods, even those of the general councils, cannot be published in France before the Government has examined their form, their conformity with the laws, rights and privileges of the French Republic, and all that which in their publication could alter or interfere with the public tranquility.

Article 4. No council, national or metropolitan, no diocesan synod, no deliberative assembly, shall be held without the express permission of the Government.

Article 5. All ecclesiastical functions shall be gratuitous, except the offerings which will be authorized and fixed by the regulations.

Article 6. Recourse to the Council of State shall be had in every case of abuse on the part of superiors and other ecclesiastical persons.

The cases of abuse are as follows: Usurpation or excess of power, contravention of the laws and regulations of the Republic; violation of the rules which are consecrated by the Canons received in France; any attack on the liberties, privileges, and customs of the French church; and every undertaking or proceeding which, in the exercise of worship, might compromise the honor of citizens, trouble their consciences unnecessarily, or which might degenerate into a source of oppression or injury to them, or become a public scandal.

Article 7. Recourse to the Council of States shall also be permitted whenever an attack is made upon the public exercise of worship, and the liberty which the laws and regulations guarantee to its ministers.

Article 8. This recourse is the privilege of all persons interested. In default of a particular complaint, this duty will devolve upon the prefects. Public functionaries, ecclesiastics or other persons who wish to make use of this appeal, will address a memorial, detailed and signed, to the counsellor of State charged with all matters concerning religion, whose duty it will be to obtain, in the shortest time possible, all proper information, and upon his report the affair will be taken up and finished in the administrative form, or sent, as the case may demand, to the competent authorities.

Article 11. The archbishops and bishops may, with the authorization of the Government, establish in their dioceses cathedral chapters and seminaries. All other ecclesiastical establishments are suppressed.

Article 12. Bishops shall be permitted to add to their names the title of Citizen or that of Monsieur. All other qualifications are interdicted.

Article 16. No one may be nominated to bishopric who has not attained the age of thirty years, or who is not of French origin.

Article 18. The priest nominated by the First Consul shall make haste to obtain institution from the Pope.

He cannot exercise any function before the bull containing such institution has received the seal of the Government, and before he has taken personally the oath prescribed by the convention made between the French Government and the Holy See. This oath shall be taken before the First Consul: a formal attestation of the same shall be drawn up by the Secretary of State.

Article 19. The bishops shall name and install the pastors; nevertheless they shall not publish their nomination nor give canonical institution until that nomination has been approved by the First Consul.

Article 23. The bishops shall be charged with the organization of their seminaries, and the regulation of that organization shall be submitted to the approbation of the First Consul.

Article 24. Those who shall be chosen to teach in the seminaries shall subscribe to the declaration made by the clergy of France in 1682 and published by an edict of the same year; they will be obliged to teach the doctrine therein contained; and the bishops shall address a formal attestation of such submission to the counsellor of State charged with all matters concerning religious worship.

The bishops will ordain no persons whose names have not been submitted to the Government and approved by it.

Article 27. Pastors may not enter upon their functions before they have taken in the hands of the prefect the oath prescribed by the convention made between the Government and the Holy See. A formal attestation of this act shall be drawn up by the secretary general of the prefecture, and they shall receive a copy of the same.

Article 32. No foreigner can be employed in the functions of the ecclesiastical ministry without the permission of the Government.

Article 39. There shall be but one liturgy and one catechism for all the Catholic churches of France.

Article 40. No pastor may order extraordinary public prayers in his parish without the special permission of the bishop.

Article 41. No feast, with the exception of Sunday, may be established without the permission of the Government.

Article 45. No religious ceremony shall be held outside the edifices consecrated to Catholic worship in such cities as contain temples destined for a different worship.

Article 53. They shall not in their powers make any publication foreign to religious worship, unless they be authorized to do so by the Government.

Article 54. They shall not bestow the nuptial blessing except on such as can prove in good and due form that they have already contracted their marriage before a civil official.

Article 56. In all ecclesiastical and religious documents it will be required to observe the equinoctial calendar established by the laws of the Republic; the days shall be designated by the names they hold in that calendar.

Article 64. The salary of an archbishop shall be 15,000 francs.

Article 65. The salary of bishops shall be 10,000 francs.

Article 66. Pastors shall be distributed into two classes. The salary of pastors of the first class shall be 1,500 francs; that of pastors of the second class shall be 1,000 francs.

Article 67. The pensions which they receive, in execution of the laws of the Constituent Assembly, shall be counted as a part of their salary. The councils general of the large communes can, out of their landed property or from the taxes, accord an augmentation of salary if the circumstances require it.

Article 68. Curates and assistants shall be chosen from ecclesiastics pensioned in execution of the laws of the Constituent Assembly. The sum of these pensions and the product of offerings made to them shall constitute their salary.

Article 69. The bishops shall draw up a list of rules relative to the offerings which ministers of worship are authorized to receive for the administration of the sacraments. These rules drawn up by the bishops may not be put in force without having been approved by the Government.

Article 70. Every ecclesiastic who receives a pension from the State shall be deprived of such pension if he refuses to perform the functions which shall be confided to him.

Article 71. The councils general of the department are authorized to provide a suitable residence for the archbishops and bishops.

Article 72. The presbyteries and the gardens thereto pertaining shall, if they are not alienated, be turned over to the pastors or to the assistants in charge of the same missions. In default of such presbyteries the councils general are authorized to provide them with a suitable residence and garden.

Article 73. The foundations which have for their object the maintenance of ministers and the exercise of worship can only consist of rentals constituted in the State; they shall be accepted by the diocesan bishop, and cannot be executed except with the authorization of the Government.

Article 74. The immovable property, other than edifices destined for residence and the gardens pertaining, cannot be affected to ecclesiastical titles, nor possessed by ministers of worship by reason of their functions.

Article 75. The edifices formerly destined for Catholic worship, actually in the hands of the nation, shall be placed at the disposition of the bishops by a written order of the prefect of the department. A copy of this order shall be addressed to the counsellor of State charged with all matters concerning religious worship.

PRESAGES OF PEACE.

The Concordat signed and ratified Catholic France settled down to the enjoyment of comparative peace and security. It was, however, only the security which follows the ravages of disease, the peace of convalescence, full of weariness, languor and exhaustion. The fifty bishops installed by the new decrees could not help a feeling of discouragement as they viewed the situation. The Church, it is true, was brought back to a position of honor and importance in the nation; but it was, at the same time, weighed down by the heavy burdens of Gallicanism and Caesarism; the former severing the ties that bound it to the head and centre of Christianity, the Holy Father; the latter making it subservient to the whims and fancies of a ruler, human at most and liable through the schemes of politics to be hostile and intolerant. The former was suited to the imperialistic ambitions of Bonaparte, who had already begun to dream of the glories of the old regime; the latter was couched in the fraudulent laws of the Organic Articles; the former was to lose its force before the lapse of half a century; the latter was to last as long as the Concordat itself.

Thus it was that the outlook at the beginning of the century was little favorable to the just execution of the Concordat. With all correspondence with Rome interdicted save under civil surveillance, deprived of the right of assemblage, and bound by slavish ties to a State official who alone could administer, reward, punish, teach, or cause to teach, according to his own pleasure, all true liberty seemed to have vanished as completely as during the dark times of the Revolution. With churches, schools and colleges under the direction of politicians, the right of ecclesiastical censure denied, and the number of aspirants to the priesthood limited, the religious society of France had become little more than an annex to the State, inferior in importance and subordinate to it in all things. The religious congregations were dispersed, the missionaries were forbidden to exercise their zeal, and for the thirty millions of Catholics in the country there were only eight thousand priests of whom fully two thousand bore the taint of the constitutional oath.

The bishops themselves were for the most part victims of the revolutionary tempest. Some of them had come forth from prison or from the foot of the scaffold whereon they had seen their fathers, brothers and friends brutally butchered by frenzied mobs. Others had come back from an exile wherein they had guarded religiously the dear image of the French Church and the hope of her speedy restoration. "But it was the Church they had seen flourishing under the shadow of a kingly sceptre, the Gallican Church with its gaudy livery and its royal servitude decorated with the names of privilege and liberty. Accustomed to receive favors from the hand of power, it was easy for them to transfer their adulatory homage from the thrones of Louis XIV. and Louis XVI. to the boots and spurs of him who, after all, had just opened to them the gates of their country and filled his native land with glory."

CORONATION OF NAPOLEON.