1. Gallicanism: who rules the French Church?
Gallicanism: who rules the French Church?
1. The foundations of a theory Gallicanism1 was an attitude that grew out of the French monarchy's claim to a special relationship with the papacy, which (it was said) gave special privileges to the French Catholic Church. The Church in France, according to Gallicanism, possessed a certain independence from the papacy, with the French king exercising many of the pope's powers. In the 17th century, this view gained impetus from the success of absolutism in government: the concentration of power in the person of the French king lent itself to seeing him as the proper governor of Church as well as state within his kingdom. It is not very surprising, then, that during the reign of Louis XIV, when absolutism reached its pinnacle, Gallicanism also prospered as never before.
Indeed, it acquired such a grip on French Catholic sentiment, especially within the royal court, that it pushed the Church in France to the brink of schism with the papacy.
Gallicanism had a long growth. It had been taught in seed-form by the theologians of Paris University's theology faculty, the Sorbonne, soon after its founding in 1257.2 It first achieved dramatic visibility in 1438, amid the crisis of the conciliar movement,3 in the "Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges".
By this affirmation, the French clergy asserted the right of the French Church to manage its property independently of the pope, and prohibited popes from nominating men to vacant French bishoprics. A new compromise agreement was struck in 1516, the Concordat of Bologna: the French king could nominate men to be heads of metropolitan and cathedral churches, and abbeys, but the right returned to the pope if two invalid nominations were made. Gallican sentiment was sufficiently entrenched at the time of the Council of Trent for the Council's decrees on church organisational matters to be ignored in Catholic France.4
Three of the most significant Gallican theorists flourished in Trent's aftermath: Pierre Pithou, Edmond Richer, and Pierre de Marca. Pierre
Pithou (1539–96) was a notable lawyer. Raised a Huguenot, he survived the massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day in 1572 by a hair's breadth; traumatized, he converted to Roman Catholicism the following year. The
first to articulate clearly and forcefully an overall theory of Gallicanism, he set this forth in his sensation-making treatise The Liberties of the Gallican
Church (1594), which was to be the basic manual of Gallicanism for the next 200 years. In essence, Pithou restricted the powers of the pope to purely spiritual matters; in organizational matters, he made the French monarch effective head of the French Church. For instance, Pithou maintained the power of the French crown to prevent French bishops communicating with or travelling to Rome (e.g. to protest against a royal decision), and denied the pope's right in France to assemble Church councils or publish papal decrees without the crown's consent.
Edmond Richer (1559–1631) was a member of the Sorbonne senate. His contribution to Gallicanism was his influential De Ecclesiastica et Politica
Potestate Libellus ("Tract on Ecclesiastical and Political Power"), published in 1611. In somewhat democratic vein, Richer taught that Church power belonged primarily to the whole body of believers, which they delegated to the clergy. Christ had not appointed Peter as sole head of the Church, but had committed leadership collectively to all 12 apostles. Church government was thus corporate in nature, not a papal monarchy—hence the right of national Churches (all the faithful in a particular nation) to a measure of autonomy from Rome. These views were in many ways a revival of the conciliarism of the 15th century. Richer also exalted the status of parish priests, whom he made essentially equal to bishops; in this respect, his view has been called "Catholic Presbyterianism". It was all part of his philosophy of decentralizing power, whether in pope or bishop.
Pierre de Marca (1594–1662) was a canon lawyer. A committed Gallican, he wrote a number of dissertations on the subject which impressed
Cardinal Richelieu. At Richelieu's bidding, Marca published his dissertations in a single volume in 1641, his De Concordia Sacerdotii et
Imperii ("On the Harmony between Priesthood and Kingship"). The strong Gallican tenets of this influential treatise (for instance, that papal laws are not binding until the nation to which they apply gives its consent) so outraged Pope Urban VIII that he had it put on the Index of Forbidden
Books in 1642. Even so, the book was republished in an enlarged edition in 1663, a year after de Marca's death. This edition too was placed on the Index. De Marca himself, despite the papal fury heaped on his book, achieved high eminence in the French Church; he eventually submitted to Rome's correction, becoming Archbishop of Toulouse in 1652, and of Paris
in 1662. Regardless of his recantation, however, his Gallican theories bloomed.
The climate of opinion in 17th century France, then, allowed Gallicanism to flourish. Pithou, Richer, and de Marca all contributed to a swelling tide of feeling that the Catholic Church of France, under the monarch
(especially the awesome Louis XIV), was no mere province of the Roman papacy, but a semi-independent body with its own cherished rights and traditions, which popes disrespected at their peril. Indeed, in 1663, the Sorbonne itself, the most illustrious theological college in Roman Catholic
Christendom, issued a firm declaration of Gallican principles: it denied that the papacy had any political power over the French monarchy, that popes were superior to general councils of the Church, or that a pope was infallible unless his pronouncements were ratified by the whole Church.
2. The crisis: 1673–93 This thriving Gallican sentiment in France erupted into positive crisis in the period 1673–93. The spark that lit the blaze was the régale—the right of the French king to receive the revenues of a vacant bishopric (the régale temporelle), and to appoint clergy in certain dioceses (the régale spirituelle). This royal right did not as yet apply to large parts of southern
France; the legal existence of the régale dated back to the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, when much of the south was not directly under the French crown's sovereignty. Since 1608, debate had churned over whether the régale should be extended to southern France. King Louis XIV decided to bring the debate to an abrupt end by decreeing unilaterally, in 1673, that the whole of France was now subject to the régale. The decree impinged on 59 of France's 130 bishops. Only two bishops protested, Pavillon of Alet and Caulet of Pamiers, both Jansenist sympathizers (see the previous chapter for Jansenism). After Pavillon's death, Caulet battled on alone, strongly backed by Pope Innocent XI (1676–89), who overturned all decisions against Caulet by his royalist archbishop. Caulet died in 1680, but Pope Innocent by now was locked in conflict with Louis over the principles involved.
Relations between Louis and Innocent deteriorated rapidly. Innocent (real name Benedict Odescalchi, born 1611) was a man of high ethical integrity, a scholar who had been a model priest before his elevation to power in the Church. It is said that he often wept while celebrating mass, emotionally overcome by the glory and love of God, and his own unworthiness. The ordinary people of Rome looked on him as a living saint. Quite immune to the French king's threats and bullying, Innocent took issue with him over matters other than the régale, especially his military policies. For example, he criticized Louis' alliances with the Muslim Ottoman Empire against Christian countries, and his habit of annexing territories by simply marching his troops in without any legal declaration of war.
Faced with such unbending opposition from high-principled Innocent, Louis' patience finally snapped. He summoned a general assembly of the French clergy, which met from October 1681 to May 1682, in order to unite the French Church behind him in defying the pope over the matter of the régale. There was little doubt of the assembly's support for its monarch, but how to formulate that support proved to be a matter of lengthy controversy.
The Archbishop of Paris, Harlay de Champvallon (1625–95), was an
extreme Gallican who championed Louis' cause with unrestrained fervour; but he was opposed by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux,
France's greatest preacher, whose Gallicanism was of a much more moderate type (see chapter 6, section 3.5 for more on Bossuet).
3. The Four Articles (1682) The assembly discussed the régale, but this was soon swallowed up in a furore of passionate debate about more basic issues. Arguments for and against papal infallibility raged back and forth; the most radical Gallicans among the clergy even spoke of disowning the papacy altogether. At length
Bossuet's moderation prevailed; he was determined to guide the French Church to a mediating position that would uphold the king's authority and the "liberties of the Gallican Church", without severing ties with the papacy. To that end, Bossuet drafted what became known as the Four
Articles, which the assembly unanimously approved on 19th March 1682.
Although in temperate form, the Articles set forth a definite Gallican position, which we could summarize thus:
1. God has given the papacy and the Church dominion over spiritual matters only, but not political matters. Therefore the pope has no power to depose kings, or to absolve citizens from their duty to submit to their rightful rulers.
2. The pope's "plenitude of power" in things spiritual does not detract from the sacrosanct decrees of the Council of Constance (1414–18), contained in its fourth and fifth sessions (these laid down the conciliar theory of Church government, in particular that popes were subject to ecumenical councils).5
3. The pope's authority must be exercised in accordance with the established laws, liberties, and customs of the French kingdom and Church, which have their own inviolable dignity.
4. Although the pope takes the lead in defining the faith for the universal Church, his judgement is open to correction until approved by the whole Church.
The Four Articles were immediately endorsed by the parlement of Paris, and announced as the law of the land. Unlike the English Westminster parliament, a French parlement was not an elected institution, but more like a corporation of lawyers. Every major French city had a parlement. The Paris parlement was the most important, because to it belonged the right to "register" (ratify) the king's edicts, giving them legal force. It also had the right to complain about proposed new laws without fear of punishment.
Often the Paris parlement was at the forefront of opposition to royal policy.
In matters pertaining to Gallicanism, however, king and parlement were usually at one.
Determined to place the stamp of his authority on his kingdom, and root out any pro-papal sentiment, Louis ordered that the Four Articles be taught as official doctrine in all French universities and seminaries; all candidates for a theological degree had to subscribe to the Gallican manifesto. Pope
Innocent, however, condemned the Articles indignantly—"with a shudder of disgust"—and for the next seven years, the French court and the papacy were virtually at war with each other. Innocent, unimpressed by the rallying of the French clergy to Louis, refused to recognize any of the bishops Louis appointed to vacant dioceses by means of the disputed régale; by the end of the crisis, 35 French dioceses had "king's bishops" out of communion with the pope.
(Incidentally, this state of affairs means that when Louis revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685, stripping French Protestants of their religious liberty in order to force them back into the Roman Catholic Church, Louis was himself at daggers drawn with the papacy over the Gallican conflict— indeed, within two years, Louis would be excommunicated! This must count as one of the greatest ironies of Church history in the period covered by this volume. See section 3, below for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.) Relations between Louis and Innocent hit rock-bottom in 1687. Innocent annulled a diplomatic immunity enjoyed by ambassadors in Rome which had exempted them from police supervision; all governments save the French agreed to this. Louis refused to submit; Innocent excommunicated the French ambassador; Louis promptly put the papal nuncio (Innocent's diplomatic representative in France) under arrest. For Innocent this outrage was the last straw, and on 16th November 1687, he excommunicated Louis.
Out of consideration for Louis' commanding stature as the greatest Roman Catholic king in Christendom, however, Innocent did not make the excommunication public; he informed Louis privately that he was now cut off from the sacraments of his Church.
4. Peace restored The deadlock between Louis and Innocent was broken only by the latter's death in August 1689. The French king was by this time becoming weary of the struggle; the religious side of his nature felt keenly his disharmony with the visible head of his Church. His foreign wars were starting to go badly; a favourable pope would be a comfort, both spiritually and diplomatically.
Besides, Louis needed papal support if he was ever to resolve the Jansenist controversy that was still disrupting the internal peace of French
Catholicism (see previous chapter). The death of Innocent XI enabled Louis to claim that the quarrel of the past decade had been a purely personal one between himself and the late pope; to Louis' relief, more flexible men now sat on the papal throne, willing to hear the French king's claims.
After negotiations, the Gallican crisis ended at last in 1693, when Louis and new pope Innocent XII (1691–1700) agreed terms. Louis withdrew the Four Articles, and made his "king's bishops" each write to the pope disowning the Articles. For his part, Innocent accepted the extension of the régale over the whole of southern France, and (on receiving their letter of apology) recognized the "king's bishops" as properly ordained. Catholic
France was once more in full communion with Rome.
The immediate crisis was over; but Gallicanism itself was far from dead.
It lived on as a powerful sentiment within the body of French Catholicism.
Most of the parlements of France declined to recognize the withdrawal of the Four Articles, and suppressed any writings that questioned their teaching; the Articles continued to be taught in many universities and seminaries, albeit without royal sanction; and they remained the belief of most French Catholics, laity and clergy alike.