The Modern Regime, Volume 2 by Hippolyte Taine
page 75 of 369 (20%)
page 75 of 369 (20%)
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this time, maintained in the speculative region of abstract formulae,
comes down to solid ground, into practical and lasting use. Willingly or not, "the Pope acts as if universal bishop;" urged and constrained by the lay power, attached to a dictatorship,[3] he entered upon it and so installed himself, and, ten years later, Napoleon, who had impelled him on, regretted that he had done so. Warned by his Gallican jurists, he saw the ecclesiastical import of his work; but it was too late to retreat - the decisive step had been taken. - For, in fact, the Pope had deprived all the chieftains of a great church of their thrones, "his colleagues and co-bishops,"[4] successors of the apostles under the same title as himself, members "of the same order and stamped " with the same "character," eighty-five legitimate incumbents[5] and, still better, as admitted by himself, blameless, worthy, persecuted because they had obeyed him, banished from France on account of their unwillingness to quit the Roman Church. He had ordered them to resign; he had withdrawn apostolic powers from the thirteen who had refused to tender their resignations; to all, even to those who refused, he had appointed their successors. He assigned to the new titularies dioceses of a new pattern and, to justify novelties of such gravity,[6] he could allege no other reasons than circumstances, the exigencies of lay power, and the welfare of the Church. After that the Gallicans themselves, unless accepting the risk of a schism and of separating forever from the Holy See, were obliged to allow the Pope above and beyond the ordinary powers exercised by him within the old limits of canons and of custom, an extraordinary power unlimited by any canon or by any custom,[7] a plenary and absolute authority, a right above all other rights, by virtue of which, in cases determined by himself, he provided in a discretionary way for all Catholic interests, of which he thus becomes the supreme judge, the sole interpreter and the court of last appeal. An |
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