regular clergy; the secular clergy suffices. "Never[57] 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[58] 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.[59] "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.[60] 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