66 "of greater precaution, and as far as may be necessary, "we, of our own said accord, knowledge, deliberation, plenitude of power, condemn, reprobate, annul, suppress, "and deprive of all force and value the aforesaid articles," &c. CCCXXXVII (A). The questions arising out of the Papal Encyclic Quanta Cura, and its Appendix, called the Syllabus (s) (issued 8th December, 1864) which have so much disturbed and irritated the Governments of civil States, and the recent (t) decree of the Vatican Council (u), in the Bull (8) "C'est le 8 décembre qu'apparut le travail du père Perrone sous la forme d'une encyclique connue désormais dans le monde sous le nom d'encyclique Quanta cura, et suivi d'un syllabus ou série de propositions condamnées comme impies ou hérétiques. Pie IX traitait de délire la liberté de conscience et des cultes, déclarait qu'on n'est catholique qu'à la condition de n'admettre ni la séparation de l'église et de l'état, ni l'indépendance du pouvoir civil, ni la liberté de l'enseignement, de la presse, de l'association; il proclamait enfin que 'l'église a le droit de lier les consciences des fidèles dans ce qui se rapporte à l'usage des choses temporelles, et de réprimer par des peines temporelles les violateurs de ses lois.' Quant au syllabus, il condamnait quatre-vingts propositions qui contiennent, on peut le dire, les plus chères et les plus précieuses croyances des temps modernes. "Les articles 16, 17, 18 condamnent les cultes non catholiques, l'article 24 revendique pour l'église un pouvoir coercitif; l'article 42 réclame pour le pouvoir religieux, en cas de conflit avec le pouvoir civil, les droits que les gouvernements modernes ne reconnaissent qu'à ce dernier ; l'article 48 revendique pour l'église le droit de s'immiscer dans la législation civile, par exemple, pour en effacer tout ce qui peut être favorable aux protestants et aux juifs; l'article 72 condamne le mariage civil; les articles 15, 77, 78, 79, 80, tout ce qui ressemble à la liberté religieuse ou politique." -Ann. des Deux Mondes (1864–5), pp. 206, 207. (t) July 18, 1870, this Bull contains a "decreto "-De Romani Pontificis infallibili magisterio. (u) Some of the documents relating to this subject, as well as to the incorporation of the Pontifical States into the Kingdom of Italy, will be found in the Appendix. The following publications should be studied by all who are interested in the former subject: 1. Offizielle Aktenstücke zu dem von Seiner Heiligkeit dem Papste Pius IX. nach Rom berufenen Oekumenischen Concil. Im Anhange. Die Coblenzer Laien-Adresse. Berlin, 1869. This work includes the Encyclic and Syllabus of the 8th December,1864. 2. Documenta ad illustrandum Concilium Vaticanum anni 1870. Gesammelt, u.s.w. von Dr. Friedrich. Nordlingen, 1871. or Costituzione Pastor Eternus, with respect to the infallibility of the Pope, cannot properly be discussed at any length in this work (x). These questions are directly of a religious character, though they indirectly touch the International relations of States, inasmuch as they partake of the character of instruments issued by an authority which professes to control the acts of foreign subjects and to affect their relations to the Governments of the States of which they are members. This indirect invasion of the civil rights of foreign Governments is of less importance, as a matter of International law, since the Pope has ceased to be a de facto Sovereign of an independent State; though, according to the recent Italian statute of Guarantees for the future status of the Pope, he retains a sovereignty, for certain purposes, without territory or the power of enforcing his own decrees by his own officers, so far as civil results are concerned. (x) See Appendix for some papers on this subject. CHAPTER VII. THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF THE PAPACY WITH FOREIGN STATES IN WHICH THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IS ESTABLISHED, DURING THE PERIOD BETWEEN THE REFORMATION AND THE PRESENT TIME.THE HISTORY OF CONCORDATA. CCCXXXVIII. THE great evil of the Concordat of Francis I. (a) was the manifest inequality of the contract in one important particular between the contracting parties. It assigned a term within which the Crown must nominate, but no term within which the Pope must institute, the Bishop. In this inequality the ground was prepared for collision between the State and the Pope. The advantage was necessarily and greatly upon the side of the spiritual potentate. Upon the Episcopate the clergy depended for their order, the laity for the enjoyment of religious ministrations, and, indirectly, the whole realm for its tranquillity. If the Pope refused institution, the Crown had no means of redress, though its State was thrown into the utmost confusion, and its subjects were deprived of their greatest blessing. The means to which one temporal State resorts against another temporal State, of compelling the execution of the contract, were, or ought to be, wanting in this instance. France and Naples might, and did indeed, sometimes sanction the invasion of the Papal territories, as of Avignon and Beneventum, and so far treat the Pope in this respect as a temporal Prince, as to have recourse to the means, which International Law would sanction, of compelling a temporal Prince to fulfil his contract. 66 To dwell on the mischief done to the Church alone by this consequence of the Concordat (b) of Francis I., does not belong to this work; but such mischief to the State and Church could never have arisen under that primitive rule of the Church by which the Bishop was elected by the laity or clergy, or both, and instituted by his comprovincials and Metropolitan. "Il est sans doute conforme à l'antique discipline de l'Église gallicane d'attribuer aux Métropoli"tains et aux plus anciens Évêques des métropoles l'insti"tution des Évêques" (c), is the language of the "Exposition des Principes sur la Constitution du Clergé par "les Évêques députés à l'Assemblée nationale " in 1791 (d), of which Pius VI. approved, and which a modern French Council has pronounced, not unjustly, to be one of the fairest monuments of the Gallican Church. 66 CCCXXXIX. Between the reign of Francis I. and Louis XIII. (e), on account of the Pope's refusal of a Bull of institution to a Bishop nominated by Henry IV. to the See of Auxerre, that see was vacant for twelve years. Louis XIII. underwent a similar refusal in the person of the celebrated De Marca, whom he had nominated to the Bishopric of Conserans; and the vacancy lasted six years, from 1642 to 1648. Three Popes (ƒ) successively refused the confirmation of the Bishops of Louis XIV., and the number of vacant sees amounted at one time to thirty-five. In later times the Pope sometimes accomplished the end of refusal in a less direct manner, by leaving out the name of the Prince in the Bull, which, according to the Concordat, ought to be there, and thereby making it appear that the nomination was made proprio motu of the Pope, and not of the (b) De Pradt, i. c. 14. (c) See this exposition at length in Lequeux, i. 499. (e) De Pradt, i. c. 6. (f Innocent XI., Alexander VIII., Innocent XII. Sovereign. Such Bulls were of course rejected by the Prince. CCCXL. To these disagreements, in spite of a Concordat between the State and the Pope, Christendom is indebted for the ever-memorable declaration of the liberties of the Gallican Church. As early as 1504 (g), the University of Paris protested against certain powers claimed by the Legate d'Amboise, with respect to the collation of benefices, and the rights of graduates, and asserted with respect to denying the absolute power of the Pope, that "in hac consistit libertas Ecclesiæ Gallicana." In 1594, Pierre Pithou (h) published, under the title of "Libertés de l'Église gallicane," a sort of code of eighty-four articles, deduced from two maxims, namely, the independence of Princes, and the limitation of Papal authority by canons and councils. This code has been called by French writers the Palladium of France, and has actually been cited in edicts, as in that of November, A.D. 1719 (i). In 1651 it was published, after De Marca had defended it in his great, work, with a "privilege" prefixed by the King, in which the work was represented as placing the Regalia of the Crown in ecclesiastical matters beyond dispute (k). In A.D. 1614, the States-General complained bitterly of infringements upon their liberties. In 1663, the Sorbonne put forth six articles (1), denying, in the plainest language, all authority of the Pope, direct or indirect, in temporal matters, declaring that he had no power of dispensing with (9) Lequeux, i. 358. (h) The most learned Frenchman of his time; born at Troyes, died 1596, at the age of 57. François Pithou, his brother, shared his labours and fame. (1) Durande de Maillane, cit. t. iii. 194, contains the eighty-four articles at length. (k) The most famous commentary on Pithou's work is that of Jacques Dupuis, in two vols. folio. Some of the propositions contained in it were condemned by an assembly of the clergy in 1640. (1) Durande de Maillane, ubi supr. t. iii. 210. |