"The people want a religion, and this religion should be in the hands of the government!"[5145]
On this theme, his jurists, old parliamentarians or conventionalists, his ministers and counselors, Gallicans or Jacobins, his spokesmen in the legislative assembly or the tribunate, all imbued with Roman law or with the Contrat Social are capital megaphones for proclaiming the omnipotence of the State in polished sentences. "The unity of public power and its universality," says Portalis,[5146] "are a necessary consequence of its independence." "Public power must be self-sufficient; it is nothing if not all..." Public power cannot tolerate rivals; it cannot allow other powers to establish themselves alongside of it without its consent, perhaps to sap and weaken it. "The authority of a State might become precarious if men on its territory exercise great influence over minds and consciences, unless these men belong to it, at least in some relation." It is careless "if it remains unfamiliar or indifferent to the form and the constitution of the government which proposes to govern souls," if it admits that the limits within which the faith and obedience of believers "can be made or altered without its support, if it has not, in its legally recognized and avowed superiors, guarantees of the fidelity of inferiors." Such was the rule in France for the Catholic cult previous to 1789, and such is to be the rule, after 1801, for all authorized cults. If the State authorizes them, it is "to direct such important institutions with a view to the greatest public utility." Solely because it is favorable to "their doctrine and their discipline" it means to maintain these intact and prevent "their ministers from corrupting the doctrine entrusted to their teaching, or from arbitrarily throwing off the yoke of discipline, to the great prejudice of individuals and the State."[5147] Hence, in the legal statute by which a Church is incorporated and realizes what she is, it states in precise terms what it exacts or permits her to be; henceforward she shall be this or that and so remain; her dogmas and her canons, her hierarchy and her internal regime, her territorial subdivisions and circumscriptions, her regular or casual sources of income, her teachings and her liturgy are definite things and fixed limitations. No ecclesiastical assembly, Protestant, Catholic, or Israelite, shall formulate or publish any doctrinal or disciplinary decision without the government's approbation.[5148] No ecclesiastical assembly, Protestant, Catholic, or Israelite, shall be held without the approval of the government. All sacerdotal authorities, bishops and curés, pastors and ministers of both Protestant confessions, consistorial inspectors and presidents of the Augsbourg Confession, notables of each Israelite circumscription, members of each Israelite consistory, members of the central Israelite consistory, rabbis and grand-rabbis, shall be appointed or accepted by the government and paid by it through an executory" decision of its prefects. All the professors of Protestant or Catholic seminaries shall be appointed and paid by the government. Whatever the seminary, whether Protestant or Catholic, its establishment, its regulations, its internal management, the object and spirit of its studies, shall be submitted to the approval of the government. In each cult, a distinct, formulated, official doctrine shall govern the teaching, preaching, and public or special instruction of every kind; this, for the Israelite cult, is" the doctrine expressed by the decisions of the grand Sanhedrin";[5149] for the two Protestant cults, the doctrine of the Confession of Augsbourg, taught in the two seminaries of the East, and the doctrine of the Reformed Church taught in the Genevan seminary;[5150] for the Catholic cult, the maxims of the Gallican Church, the declaration, in 1682, of the assembly of the clergy[5151] and the four famous propositions depriving the Pope of any authority over sovereigns in temporal matters, subordinating the Pope to ecumenical councils in ecclesiastical and spiritual concerns, and which, in the government of the French Church, limit the authority of the Pope to ancient usages or canons inherited by that Church and accepted by the State.
In this way, the ascendancy of the State, in ecclesiastical matters, increases beyond all measure and remains without any counterpoise. Instead of one Church, it maintains four, while the principal one, the Catholic, comprising 33 million followers, and more dependent than under the old monarchy, loses the privileges which once limited or compensated it for its subjection.—Formerly the prince was its temporal head, on condition that he should be its exterior arm, that it should have the monopoly of education and the censorship of books, that he should use his strong arm against heretics, schismatics and free-thinkers. Of all these obligations which kings accepted, the new sovereign frees himself, and yet, with the Holy See, he holds on to the same prerogatives and, with the Church, the same rights as his predecessors. He is just as minutely dictatorial as formerly with regard to the details of worship. Sometimes he fixes the fees and perquisites of the priests for administering the sacraments: "This charge is a purely civil and temporal operation, since it resolves itself into a levy of so many pence on the citizen. Bishops and priests should not be allowed to decide here.[5152] The government alone must remain the arbiter between the priest who receives and the person who pays." Sometimes, he intervenes in the publication of plenary indulgence: "It is essential[5153] that indulgences should not be awarded for causes which might be contrary to public order or to the welfare of the country; the political magistrate is equally interested in knowing what the authority is that grants indulgences; if its title to act is legal, to what persons indulgences are granted, what persons are entrusted with their distribution, and what persons are to fix the term and duration of extraordinary prayers."—Thus bound and held by the State, the Church is simply one of its appendices, for its own free roots by which, in this close embrace, it still vegetates and keeps erect have all been cut off short; torn from the soil and grafted on the State, they derive their sap and their roots from the civil powers. Before 1789, the clergy formed a distinct order in temporal society and, above all others, a body possessing property and exempt from taxes, a tax-payer apart which, represented in periodical assemblies, negotiated every five years with the King himself, granted him subsidies and, in exchange for this "disinterested gift," secured for itself concessions or confirmations of immunities, prerogatives and favors. Today, it is merely a collection of ordinary individuals and subjects, even less than that—an administrative staff similar to that of the university, of the magistrature, of the treasury, and of the woods and forests, even more closely watched and bridled, with more detailed precautions and stricter interdictions. Before 1789, the curés and other second-class officials were, for the most part, selected and installed without the prince's intervention, sometimes by the bishop of the diocese or a neighboring abbé, sometimes by independent collators, by the titular himself,[5154] by a lay patron or a chapter, by a commune, by an indultaire, by the pope, while the salary of each titular, large or small, was his private property, the annual product of a piece of land or of some indebtedness attached to his office and which he administered. Nowadays, every incumbent, from the cardinal-archbishop down to a canon, cantonal curé, and director or teacher in a seminary, is appointed or accepted by the civil power to which he swears fidelity. His salary, set down in the budget, is simply that of a public employee, so many francs and centimes for which he comes monthly to the office of the treasury paymaster, along with others of his colleagues who are employed by the State in non-Catholic cults, together with others, his quasi-colleagues, whom the State employs in the university, in the magistrature, in the gendarmerie, and in the police.[5155] Such, in all branches of social life, is the universal and final effect of the Revolution. In the Church, as elsewhere, it has extended the interference and preponderance of the State, not inadvertently but intentionally, not accidentally but on principle.[5156] "The Constituent" (Assembly), says Siméon, "had rightly recognized that, religion being one of the oldest and most powerful means of government, it was necessary to bring it more than it had been under the control of the government." Hence, the civil constitution of the clergy; "its only mistake was not to reconcile itself with the Pope." At present, thanks to the agreement between Pope and government (Napoleon, First Consul), the new régime completes the work of the ancient régime and, in the Church as elsewhere, the domination of the centralizing State is complete.
VI. Napoleon Executes the Concordat.
Reasons for suppressing the regular clergy.—Authorized
religious associations.—The authorization revocable.
These are the grand lines of the new ecclesiastical establishment, and the general connections by which the Catholic Church, like an apartment in a building, finds itself included in and incorporated with the State. It need not disconnect itself under the pretext of making itself more complete; there it is, built and finished; it cannot add to or go beyond this; no collateral and supplementary constructions are requisite which, through their independence, would derange the architectural whole, no monastic congregations, no body of regular clergy; the secular clergy suffices. "Never[5157] has it been contested that the public power had the right to dissolve arbitrary institutions which do not insist on the essence of religion and which are judged suspicious or troublesome to the State." As a principle, all religious communities should be judged in this way; for they are spontaneous bodies; they form their own organization, and without the aid of the State, through the free will of their members; they live apart, according to the proper and peculiar statute which they adopt, outside of lay society, alongside of the established Church, under distinct chiefs chosen by themselves, sometimes under foreign ones, all more or less independent, all, through interest and by instinct, gathered around the Holy See, which, against diocesan authority and episcopal jurisdiction, serves them as protector. Formerly, the monks[5158] formed the Pope's militia; they recognized no other sovereign, and thus were they more to be feared by governments than the secular clergy. The latter, without them, "would never have caused embarrassment;" henceforth there will be no other body.[5159] "I want bishops, curés, vicars, and that's all! Religious communities have been allowed to re-establish themselves against my instructions;—I am informed that, at Beauvais, the Jesuits have formed establishments under the name of the Fathers of Faith. It should not be allowed"—and he prohibits it by decree.[5160] He dissolves "all associations formed under the pretext of religion and unauthorized." He decides that, in future, "no aggregation or association of men or of women shall be formed under pretext of religion unless formally authorized;" he enjoins the prosecuting attorneys of his courts "to prosecute even by extra proceedings all persons of both sexes who directly or indirectly violate this decree." He reserves to himself, however, the faculty of authorizing communities by which he can profit, and, in fact, he authorizes several of these as instruments which society needs, or which are useful to the State, especially nursing or teaching sisters of charity,[5161] the brethren of Christian schools,[5162] and, first in rank, the Lazarists and the Fathers of foreign missions.[5163] "These monks," he says,[5164] will be of great service in Asia, in Africa, and in America. I will send them to procure information on the state of the country. Their robe protects them, while it is a cover to political and commercial designs.... I will allow them a capital to start with of 15,000 francs rental.... They cost little, are respected by savages, and, having no official character, can not compromise the government." Moreover, "religious zeal leads them to undertake work and to face perils which are beyond the strength of a civil agent."—Of course, as they are "secret diplomatic agents," the government must keep them in hand and direct them. Consequently, "their superior must no longer reside in Rome, but at Paris." The same precaution is taken with reference to other congregations, which, in teaching or in charity, become regular auxiliaries of the lay power. "The general-superior of the Sisters of Charity will live in Paris[5165]; the entire body will then be in the hands of the government." As to the brethren of the Christian schools, Napoleon absorbs these in his university.[5166] "They must be licensed by the grand-master,[5167] who will certify to their internal regulations, accept their oaths, prescribe a special costume, and superintend their schools." Observe the exigencies of the government at this point, its measures for controlling the religious orders authorized by it. Abbé Hanon,[5168] the common superior of the Sisters of Saint-Vincent de Paul, having refused to place Madame Lætitia (Napoleon's mother) at the head of the council of the order, is carried off at night and shut up at Fenestrelles,[5169] while the Sisters, who, following the instructions of their founder, refuse to recognize a superior appointed by the civil power, are treated in the same manner as formerly the nuns of Port-Royal.[5170]
"It is time to put an end to this scandal of the Sisters of Charity in rebellion against their superiors. It is my intention to suppress all the houses which, in twenty-four hours after the notice you give them, do not return to subordination. You will replace the houses suppressed, not by Sisters of the same order, but by those of another order of charity. The Sisters at Paris will lose their influence, which will be a good thing."
Whatever the communities may be, the authorization by which they organize is merely a favor, and every favor granted may be withdrawn.
"I will have no more missions of any kind.[5171] I established missionaries in Paris and gave them a house: I cancel it all. I am content with religion at home; I do not care to spread it abroad... . I make you responsible if (in a month from this) on the first of October there are any missions or congregations still existing in France."—