Part 10 (1/2)

The following form of prayer shall be recited at the end of the Divine Office, in all the Catholic Churches of France: Domine, salvam fac Rempublicam. Domine, salvos fac Consules.

Article IX.

The bishops shall make a new circ.u.mscription of the parishes in their dioceses, which shall be of no effect until approved by the Government.

Article X.

The bishops shall appoint to the parishes. Their choice shall fall only on persons acceptable to the Government.

Article XI.

Bishops may have a chapter in their Cathedral, and a seminary for their diocese, without any obligation on the part of the Government to endow them.

Article XII.

All the metropolitan churches, cathedrals, parishes, and others not alienated, necessary for wors.h.i.+p, shall be put at the disposal of the bishops.

Article XIII.

His Holiness, for the sake of peace and the happy restoration of the Catholic religion, declares that neither he nor his successors will disquiet in any manner the holders of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that, consequently, the right to said property, with the rights and revenues attached thereto, shall remain incommutable in their hands or those of their representatives.

Article XIV.

The Government will secure a suitable salary to the bishops, and to parish priests whose dioceses and parishes are comprised in the new circ.u.mscription.

Article XV.

The Government will also take measures to enable French Catholics, when so disposed, to create foundations in favor of churches.

Article XVI.

His Holiness recognizes, in the First Consul of the French Republic, the same rights and prerogatives enjoyed at Rome by the former Government.

Article XVII.

It is agreed between the contracting parties that in case any successor of the present First Consul should not be a Catholic, the rights and prerogatives mentioned in the preceding article, and the nominations to Sees, shall be regulated, so far as he is concerned, by a new convention.

The ratifications to be exchanged at Paris within forty days.

Done at Paris, 26th Messidor, year IX. of the French Republic, July 15th, 1801.

H. CARDINAL CONSALVI, J. BONAPARTE, J. ARCHEVEQUE de CORINTHE, FR. CHARLES CASELLI, CRETET, BERNIER.

Upon its appearance, the new treaty was naturally subjected to criticism, adverse and favorable. That it meant a decided victory for the Church over her old enemies was admitted on all sides, and all hostility to its prescriptions could be reduced to the murmurings of the Royalists, the emigres, the Gallicans, the const.i.tutionals and the various revolutionary parties. By the great ma.s.s of the Catholic people it was hailed as a rainbow of promise after the desolating storms of the past ten years.

”According to its first article the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion was to be exercised freely in France; the Catholic Church was therefore to be free in her organization, free in her preaching and teaching, free in her discipline, in her ministers, in her right of acquiring such property as would be necessary for the accomplis.h.i.+ng of her mission. She is no longer as under the old regime, intimately allied with the State; she is no longer the Church of the State; the separation of the temporal and the spiritual has been effected.... But if in return one considers the words of the text according to their real value, she is entirely free; she need no longer fear trespa.s.sing from outside nor a supervision that tends only to hinder her action; nor those thousand and one interferences which were formerly perpetrated by Gallicanism.”

The article continues: ”Its wors.h.i.+p shall be public”--words which naturally signify the exercise of religious ceremonies not merely within the walls of the church, but exteriorly also, as in public processions, carrying the Blessed Viatic.u.m to the sick, and such like. Nor is it strange that these practices should be permitted in a land where the Catholic faith is the religion of the great majority of the people, when in Protestant countries they are carried out solemnly and amid the veneration of all.

The addition of the words--”in conforming to the regulations of internal administration (reglements de police) which the Government shall deem necessary for the public tranquility”--was one of the causes of the delay in framing the Concordat; it was the clause against which the First Consul declaimed so violently on the famous afternoon of July 14th, and it has served ever since as the foundation of an anti-liberal jurisprudence.