The Modern Regime, Volume 2 by Hippolyte Taine
page 37 of 369 (10%)
page 37 of 369 (10%)
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new ecclesiastical staff. - Measures taken to insure the obedience of
the existing clergy and that of the clergy in the future. - Seminaries. - Small number of these allowed. - Conditions granted to them. - Proceedings against suspicious teachers and undisciplined pupils. The secular clergy remains, better protected, it seems, and by a less precarious statute, for this statute is an international and diplomatic act, a solemn and bilateral treaty which binds the French government, not only to itself but to another government, to an independent sovereign and the recognized head of the whole Catholic Church. - Consequently, it is of prime importance to rebuild and raise higher the barriers which, in ancient France, separated the secular clergy from the Pope, the customs and regulations which constituted the Gallican Church a province apart in the Church universal, the ecclesiastic franchises and servitudes which restricted the Pope's jurisdiction in order that the jurisdiction of the king might be extended. All these servitudes to the advantage of the lay sovereign, and all these franchises to the prejudice of the ecclesiastic sovereign, are maintained and increased by the new statute. By virtue of the Concordat and by consent of the Pope, the First Consul acquires the same rights and privileges in relation to the Holy See as the old government,"[72] that is to say the same exclusive right to nominate future French cardinals and to have as many as before in the sacred college, the same right to exclude in the sacred conclave, the same faculty of being the unique dispenser in France of high ecclesiastical places and the prerogative of appointing all the bishops and archbishops on French territory. And better still, by virtue of the Organic Articles and in spite of the Pope's remonstrances, he interposes, as with the former kings, his authority, his Council of |
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