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 QAU.ICANISM

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aALLICANlSM

smice] must also be regulated in accordance with the canons made by the Spirit of God and consecrated by the respect of the whole world. The rules, customs, and constitutions received within the kingdom and the Galilean Church must have their force and their effect, and the usages of our fathers remain in\-iolable, since the dignity of the Apostolic See itself demands that the laws and customs established by consent of that august see and of the Churches be constantly maintained.

(4) Although the pope have the chief part in ques- tions of faith, and his decrees apply to all the Churches, and to each Church in particular, yet his judgment is not irreformable, at least pending the consent of the Church.

According to the Galhcan theory, then, the papal primacy was limited, first, by the temporal power of princes, which, by the Di\'ine will, was inviolable; secondly by the authority of the general council and that of the bishops, who alone could, by their assent, give to his decrees that infallible authority which, of themselves, they lacked ; lastly, by the canons and customs of particular Churches, which the pope was bound to take into account when he exercised his authority.

But GalUcanism was more than pure speculation. It reacted from the domain of theor\' into that of facts. The bishops and magistrates of France used it, the former as warrant for increased power in the government of dioceses, the latter to extend their jurisdiction so as to cover ecclesiastical affairs. More- over, there was an episcopal and political Gallicanism, and a parliamentary or judicial Gallicanism. The former lessened the doctrinal authority of the pope in favour of that of the bishops, to the degree marked by the Declaration of 1682: the latter, affecting the relations of the temporal and spiritual powers, tended to augment the rights of the State more and more, to the prejudice of those of the Church, on the grounds of what they called "the Liberties of the Galilean Church" (Libertes de VEglise Gallicane).

These Liberties, which are enumerated in a collec- tion, or corpus, drawn up by the jurisconsults Guy Coquille and Pierre Pithou, were, according to the latter, eighty-three in number. Besides the four articles cited above, which were incorporated, the following may be noted as among the more important: The Kings of France had the right to assemble coun- cils in their dominions, and to make laws and regula- tions touching ecclesiastical matters. The pope's legates could not be sent into France, or exercise their power within that kingdom, except at the king's re- quest or with his consent. Bishops, even when com- manded by the pope, could not go out of the kingdom without the king's consent. The royal officers could not be excommunicated for any act perfonned in the discharge of their official duties. The pope could not authorize the alienation of any landed estate of the Churches, or the diminishing of an)' foundations. His Bulls and Letters might not be executed \sithout the Pareatis of the king or his officers. lie could not issue dispensations to the prejudice of the laudable customs and statutes of the cathedral Churches. It was lawful to appeal from him to a future council, or to have recourse to the "appeal as from an abuse" (appel cnmme d'abus) against acts of the ecclesiastical power.

Parliamentary Gallicanism, therefore, was of much wider scope than episcopal: indeed, it was often dis- avowed by the bishops of France, and about twenty of them condemned Pierre Pithou 's book when a new edition of it was published, in 1638, by the brothers Dupuy.

Origin and History. — The Declaration of 1682 and the work of Pithou codified the principles of Galli- canism, but did not create them, ^\■e have to inquire, then, how there came to be formed in the bosom of the

Church of France a body of doctrines and practices which tended to isolate it, and to impress upon it a physiognomy somewhat exceptional in the Catholic body. Galileans have held that the reason of this phenomenon is to be found in the very origin and history of Gallicanism.

For the more moderate among them, Galilean ideas and liberties were simply privileges — concessions made by the popes, who had been quite willing to divest themselves of a part of their authority in favour of the bishops or kings or France. It was thus that the latter could lawfully stretch their powers in eccle- siastical matters beyond the normal limits. This idea made its appearance as early as the reign of Philip the Fair, in some of the protests of that monarch against the policy of Boniface VIII. In the view of some partisans of the theory, the popes had alwaj's thought fit to show especial consideration for the ancient cus- toms of the Gallican Church, which in ever)' age had distinguished itself by its exactitude in the preserva- tion of the Faith and the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline. Others, again, assigned a more precise date to the granting of these concessions, referring their origin to the period of the earliest Carlo^'ingians, and explaining them somewhat differently. They said that the popes had found it impossible to recall to their allegiance and to due respect for ecclesiastical discipline the Prankish lords who had possessed them- selves of episcopal sees ; that these lords, insensible to censures and anathemas, rude and untaught, recog- nized no authority but that of force; and that the popes had, therefore, granted to Carloman, Pepin, and Charles the Great a spiritual authority which they were to exercise only under papal control. It was this authority that the Kings of France, successors of these princes, had inherited. This theory comes into col- lision with difficulties so serious as to have caused its rejection as well by the majority of Galileans as by their L'ltramontane adversaries. The former by no means admitted that the Liberties were privileges, since a privilege can be revoked by him who has granted it; and, as they regarded the matter, these Liberties could not be touched by any pope. More- over, they added, the Kings of France have at times received from the popes certam clearly defined privi- leges; these privileges have never been confounded with the Gallican Liberties As a matter of fact, historians could have told them, the privileges ac- corded by popes to the King of France in the course of centuries are known from the texts, of which an au- thentic collection could be compiled, and there is nothing in them resembling the Liberties in question. Again, why should not these Gallican Liberties have been transmitted to the German Emperors as well, since they, too, were the heirs of Pepin and Charle- magne? Besides, the L'ltramontanes pointed out, there are some privileges which the pope himself could not grant. Is it conceivable that a pope should allow any group of bishops the privilege of calling his infalli- bility in question, putting his doctrinal decisions upon trial, to be accepted or rejected? — or grant any kings the privilege of placing his primacy under tutelage by suppressing or curtailing his liberty of communication with the faithful in a certain territory?

Most of its partisans regarded Gallicanism rather as a revival of the most ancient traditions of Christianity, a persistence of the common law, which law, according to some (Pithou, Quesnel), was made up of the con- ciliar decrees of the earliest centuries or, according to others (Marea, Bossuet), of canons of the general and local councils, and the decretals, ancient and modern which were received in France or conformable to theii usage. "Of all Christian countries", says Fleury, "France has been the most careful to conserve the liberty of her Church and oppose the novelties intro- duced by Ultramontane canonists". The Liberties were so called, because the innovations constituted