Doctrinal Gallicanism is the body of theological theses by which the Church of France, from the 15th to the 19th century, attempted to limit the primacy of the pope: absolute independence of kings in temporal matters, superiority of the ecumenical council over the pontiff, authority of Gallican customs opposable to Rome, and a pontifical judgment in matters of faith irreformable only with the consent of the Church. Its official and definitive formula is the Declaration of the Four Articles voted on 19 March 1682 by the Extraordinary Assembly of the Clergy of France, drafted by Bossuet under pressure from Louis XIV[1][2].
From the Catholic standpoint, none of these four theses holds: the Declaration was declared null and void by Alexander VIII in 1690 (Inter multiplices pastoralis officii)[3], its Jansenist and Pistoian extensions were condemned proposition by proposition by Pius VI in 1794 (Auctorem fidei)[4], and the First Vatican Council defined in 1870, through the constitution Pastor aeternus, exactly the opposite of what Gallicanism affirmed: the pope's immediate universal jurisdiction and infallibility ex cathedra without the consent of the Church[5]. As the Catholic Encyclopedia sums up, this council "dealt Gallicanism a mortal blow: three of the four articles were directly condemned"[6].
This article treats the doctrine: what each thesis asserts, why the Church rejected it, and what the Catholic faith teaches instead. The historical narrative (the régale, the Assembly of 1682, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the Concordat of 1801) belongs to the article Gallicanism (15th-19th century): the reader is referred there instead of duplicating the material[7]. The medieval conciliarist matrix (Constance, Basel) belongs to the article Radical Conciliarism.
The Four Articles: what Gallicanism asserts
Stripped of its argumentation, the doctrine of the Declaration of 1682 comes down to four propositions. It was the first time that Gallican ideas, until then scattered among jurists, parlements and theologians, were organized into a system and received an official formula[8]. Each limits the primacy on a different flank; together, they leave the pope only an honorary presidency.
Article 1: the pope has no power over the temporal realm of kings
"Saint Peter and the popes, his successors, and the Church itself have received power from God over spiritual things only, and those concerning salvation, and not over temporal and civil things." — Declaration of the Clergy of France, article 1, 19 March 1682[9]
In concrete terms: kings are subject to no ecclesiastical power in temporal matters "by the ordinance of God"; they cannot be deposed either directly or indirectly by the authority of the Church; their subjects cannot be released from the oath of obedience[10]. This is the negation of the pope's indirect power over the temporal order (the power exercised by Gregory VII deposing Henry IV in 1076, or Innocent III arbitrating between crowns) and, more deeply, the negation of any right of the Church to judge a civil law in the name of divine law.
The thesis was not new: as early as 1663, the Sorbonne had solemnly declared that it admitted no authority of the pope over the temporal domain of the king[11]. But in 1682 it became the official doctrine of the Clergy of France, imposed by royal edict in every faculty of theology: no one could be received as doctor without having defended it in a thesis[12].
Article 2: the ecumenical council is above the pope
"The fullness of authority in spiritual matters, which belongs to the Holy See and to the successors of Saint Peter, in no way detracts from the permanence of the decrees of the Council of Constance, contained in its fourth and fifth sessions." — Declaration of the Clergy of France, article 2, 19 March 1682[13]
The article targets the decrees Haec sancta and Frequens of Constance (1414-1418): the council holds its authority immediately from Christ, every one of the faithful, "even papal", owes it obedience, and councils must meet periodically[14]. And it locks in the interpretation: the Church of France "does not approve the opinion of those who detract from these decrees", who claim that their authority is not established, that they were not approved, or that they "concern only the time of the schism"[15]. In other words: the crisis conciliarism of 1415 is erected into a permanent constitution of the Church.
Article 3: Gallican customs bind the pope himself
"The use of apostolic power must be regulated according to the canons. The rules, customs and constitutions received in the kingdom and in the Gallican Church must retain their force and effect." — Declaration of the Clergy of France, article 3, 19 March 1682[16]
Behind this formula hides the whole apparatus of the "Gallican liberties": the kings of France assemble councils in their states and legislate in ecclesiastical matters; pontifical legates enter France only with the king's consent; bishops do not leave the kingdom without his permission; and above all it is lawful to appeal from the pope to a future council or to lodge an appel comme d'abus against acts of ecclesiastical power[17]. Parliamentary Gallicanism (that of Pierre Pithou and his Libertez de l'église gallicane of 1594, a catalogue of 83 maxims limiting Rome[18]) had here an even wider scope than the Gallicanism of the bishops, to the point that some twenty bishops condemned Pithou's book when it was reissued by the Dupuy brothers in 1638[19].
The same logic carried the ecclesiology of Edmond Richer, syndic of the Sorbonne (De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, 1611): the government of the Church belongs in its own right to the body of pastors, the pope being only its ministerial head, the thesis known as Richerism, matrix of all Gallican episcopalism[20]. And it runs through Pierre de Marca's De concordia sacerdotii et imperii (1641), which grounds the liberties in the ancient canons received in France[21].
Article 4: the pope is infallible only with the consent of the Church
"Although the pope has the principal share in questions of faith, and his decrees extend to all Churches and to each Church in particular, his judgment is nevertheless not irreformable unless the consent of the Church concurs." — Declaration of the Clergy of France, article 4, 19 March 1682[22]
This is the keystone of the system: the irreformability, and therefore the infallibility, of the pontifical judgment is suspended on an external condition, the consent of the Church (meaning: of the bishops, and in practice of the Gallican episcopate). The pope proposes, France disposes. As the Catholic Encyclopedia sums up: according to the Gallican theory, the primacy was limited "by the authority of the general council and that of the bishops, who alone could, by their assent, give to his decrees that infallible authority which, of themselves, they lacked"[23].
Rome answers: declared nullity (1682-1693)
The Holy See never treated the Declaration as a free theological opinion. Innocent XI answered first with the brief Paternae caritati (11 April 1682)[24], then with the systematic refusal of bulls of canonical institution to the ecclesiastics appointed by Louis XIV who had taken part in the Assembly: from 1688 onward, 35 dioceses found themselves without a holder, and the Church of France threatened to stand isolated (the Primate of Hungary censured the Declaration as early as October 1682, Spanish theologians reproved it)[25][26].
The decisive sentence came from Alexander VIII, through the constitution Inter multiplices pastoralis officii of 4 August 1690: it quashed, as prejudicial to the Holy See, the acts of the Assembly of 1681-1682 concerning both the régale and the declaration on ecclesiastical power[27]. The compromise of September 1693 saved the king's face (he promised no longer to impose the teaching of the Articles) but at the price of a doctrinal retraction: on 14 September 1693, Louis XIV wrote to Innocent XII revoking the edict of 1682, and the signatory prelates addressed to the pope a letter disavowing everything decreed in that assembly "touching ecclesiastical power and pontifical authority"[28][29]. Rome had conceded nothing on the substance.
Bossuet himself, charged with defending the Declaration, drafted his Defensio declarationis on the ground of theology and history, with learning and moderation, a work that appeared only in 1730, long after his death, and which marks the point of full development of Gallicanism: after him, historians observe, "nothing altogether new" would ever again be produced for or against[30].
Each thesis refuted: the magisterium at a glance
The table below summarizes, for each of the Four Articles, the definitive answer of the Church. The following sections detail each piece of the case.
| Article of 1682 | What it denies | Answer of the magisterium |
|---|---|---|
| 1: no power of the pope over the temporal | The indirect power of the Church over civil laws contrary to divine law | Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes 76: just autonomy of the temporal, but refusal of an autonomy that would make the political community "the arbiter of religious questions"[31] |
| 2: the council above the pope | The pontifical monarchy of divine right | Execrabilis (Pius II, 1460) against appeal to a future council; Lateran V (1516); Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, ch. 3: universal jurisdiction[32] |
| 3: Gallican customs opposable to Rome | The universality of pontifical government | Auctorem fidei, props VI-VIII: the bishop can decide nothing against higher dispositions "without the permission and intervention of the superior hierarchical power"[33] |
| 4: infallibility only with consent | The ex sese irreformability of pontifical definitions | Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, ch. 4 (DH 3074): definitions irreformable "of themselves, and not by virtue of the consent of the Church"[34] |
Pistoia: Gallicanism condemned proposition by proposition (1794)
Gallicanism did not die in 1693: it spread. In Germany, the canonist of Trier Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim, under the pseudonym of Febronius (De statu ecclesiae, 1763), transposed the Declaration into a programme of reform: diminishing the pontifical monarchy for the benefit of bishops and princes, that is Febronianism, relayed in the Low Countries by Van Espen and in Austria by the Josephism of Joseph II[35]. In Italy, the Jansenist synod of Pistoia (1786), led by Scipione de' Ricci, attempted to acclimatize the system: power coming from the "body" of the Church, the pope a mere "ministerial head", bishops emancipated from Rome[36].
Pius VI answered with the constitution Auctorem fidei of 28 August 1794, which catalogues and condemns 85 propositions drawn from the acts of the synod[37]. Several strike at the very heart of Gallican doctrine:
"The proposition which states that 'power was given by God to the Church to be communicated to pastors, who are its ministers for the salvation of souls', in the sense that from the community of the faithful there derives into the pastors the power of ecclesiastical ministry and government: heretical." — Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. II (Ignispedia translation)[38]
"The proposition which establishes 'the Roman pontiff as ministerial head', in the sense that the Roman pontiff receives from the Church, and not from Christ in the person of Blessed Peter, the power of ministry which he has in the universal Church as successor of Peter, true vicar of Christ and head of the whole Church: heretical." — Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. III (Ignispedia translation)[39]
This is the explicit condemnation of Richerism: the pope does not hold his power from the Church, but from Christ in the person of Peter. Propositions VI to VIII strike the other, episcopalian, side of the system (the bishop who would govern his diocese without Rome):
"The doctrine by which [the synod] professes itself 'persuaded that the bishop has received from Jesus Christ all the rights necessary for the good government of his diocese', as if, for the good government of each diocese, there were no need for the higher dispositions concerning faith, morals or universal discipline, whose right belongs to the sovereign pontiffs and to general councils for the whole Church: schismatical, or at least erroneous." — Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. VI (Ignispedia translation)[40]
Propositions VII and VIII condemn the bishop who would claim to decide "according to his own judgment" against the customs, exemptions and reservations established by the superior hierarchical power, or to "return to his primitive rights" whenever he judges it useful for the good of his Church: this "induces schism and the overthrow of the hierarchical regime"[41][42]. And proposition XI strikes the synodal version of article 4: no decree, "even of the major sees", would be receivable without the approval of the diocesan synod, "false, seditious", fomenting "schism and heresy"[43]. One recognizes there, transposed to the level of the diocese, the very logic of Gallican consent.
From the opening of the bull, Pius VI sets the tone of the Catholic answer, in a formula that has remained famous:
"May the voice of Peter never fall silent in his Chair, where he lives and presides forever, offering the truth of the faith to those who seek it." — Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, § 10 (Ignispedia translation, after Saint Peter Chrysologus)[44]
Vatican I: the doctrinal end (1870)
The First Vatican Council defined, through the dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus of 18 July 1870, exactly what Gallicanism denied, in four chapters that answer the system of 1682 point by point[45] (DH 3050-3075):
| Chapter of Pastor aeternus | Definition | Buried Gallican article |
|---|---|---|
| 1: the institution of the primacy | Peter alone receives from Christ the primacy of jurisdiction over the whole Church | Art. 3: the pope a mere executor of national customs |
| 2: the perpetuity of the primacy | What Christ instituted in Peter abides in his successors, the Roman pontiffs | Art. 2: a council could absorb the primacy |
| 3: the nature of the primacy | Ordinary, supreme, plenary, immediate and universal power of jurisdiction; no appeal possible from the pope to the council | Arts. 2 and 3: appeal to a future council, appel comme d'abus |
| 4: infallibility | When the pope defines ex cathedra, his definitions are irreformable of themselves (ex sese), "and not by virtue of the consent of the Church" (non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae, DH 3074) | Art. 4: the lock of consent |
The formula of chapter 4 targets article 4 with surgical precision: where 1682 suspended irreformability on consent, 1870 declares it acquired ex sese:
"We teach and define as a dogma revealed by God: when the Roman pontiff speaks ex cathedra, [...] his definitions are irreformable of themselves, and not by virtue of the consent of the Church." — Vatican I, Pastor aeternus, ch. 4 (DH 3074)[46]
As for article 1, the council condemned it with no special definition (the independence of the temporal belonged to another order of questions), but Catholic doctrine was recalled through the condemnation of errors on Church-State relations, and above all by Vatican II: the autonomy of earthly realities is "just" so long as it does not make the political community "the arbiter of religious questions"[47]. Royal Gallicanism, for its part, had already lost its support in 1789: the Revolution, by overthrowing thrones, took away its natural protector, and the émigré bishops had nothing left but to close ranks around the Holy See[48].
There remained to disarm the last Gallican objection: "Vatican I would have been voted only by a majority, against a minority of conciliar fathers, Frenchmen trained in the moderate Gallicanism of the seminaries." The history of the council shows the opposite: the bishops of the minority, including the most illustrious Frenchmen, rallied to the definition once voted, and the council was received by the whole Church. The argument of the "consent that would have been lacking" thus turns against the system: the consent of the Church, far from failing the definition, confirmed it[49].
Vatican II and the law in force: the positive Catholic doctrine
Vatican II withdrew nothing from Vatican I: it made explicit true collegiality against its Gallican counterfeit. Lumen Gentium 22 teaches that the episcopal college has authority only "with its head, the Roman pontiff, and never without this head" (simul cum capite suo Romano Pontifice et numquam sine hoc capite)[50]; chapter 25 specifies the degrees of infallibility (the pope alone ex cathedra, the college with its head in council, the universal ordinary magisterium) without ever subordinating the head to the body[51]. The Nota explicativa praevia attached to the constitution locks the point disputed since 1682: collegiality is not ecclesial parliamentarism.
The canon law in force draws the consequences:
"Schism is called [...] the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him." — CIC 1983, can. 751[52]
The pope is there "head of the College of Bishops, Vicar of Christ and Pastor of the whole Church" (can. 331), with a "supreme, full, immediate and universal" power which he can always exercise freely (can. 333); the college of bishops acts as such only "with its head and never without its head" (can. 336)[53]. And can. 752 requires of the faithful a "religious submission of intellect and will" even to doctrines not proclaimed by a decisive act, the exact opposite of the Gallican free examination of Roman decrees[54]. The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up: the pope, "perpetual and visible principle" of unity, enjoys that infallibility "with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed" (CCC 880-883)[55].
The false Gallican proofs, one by one
Gallicanism never presented itself as an innovation, but as a fidelity: to the councils, to the Fathers, to the immemorial "liberties". Four arguments kept returning; none withstands examination.
Did Constance proclaim the superiority of the council over the pope?
The decree Haec sancta (sessions 4-5, 1415) was a crisis decree: three claimants disputed the tiara, and the council had to assume the authority needed to depose them or receive their resignations and elect Martin V (1417)[56]. Rome never received it as a dogmatic definition binding the Church; once the crisis was resolved, the restored pontifical authority superseded it. To make an emergency measure into a permanent constitution is to confuse the remedy with the regime. See the article Radical Conciliarism.
Does the Frequens decree impose councils superior to the pope?
Frequens (1417) provided for regular councils, a disciplinary measure never lastingly applied, which says nothing of any doctrinal superiority of the council[57]. Pius II moreover condemned in 1460, by the bull Execrabilis, appeal from the pope to a future council, a lock that strikes article 3 directly[58]. Lateran V in turn reproved the conciliarist theses (session 11, 1516)[59].
Are the Gallican liberties immemorial?
The Pragmatic Sanction attributed to Saint Louis (1268) is only an administrative regulation on elections and exactions (the very authenticity of the text is disputed), and the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges (1438) a royal act taken without Rome, abrogated in 1516 by the Concordat of Bologna[60]. Fleury himself, though favourable to the liberties, defines them modestly: France "has been the most careful to conserve the liberty of her Church"[61], a defensive programme of jurists set against the novelties of the ultramontane canonists, not a dogma of the Fathers.
Did the Gallican Church only follow the ancient discipline?
This is the argument of Marca and of Bossuet in the Defensio: the liberties would be only the ancient common law preserved in France. But Catholic historians have shown that Pithou's 83 maxims inextricably mix venerable customs and parliamentary usurpations, including the appel comme d'abus, judged by the Parlements under the Ancien Régime then by the Conseil d'État in the 19th century, which made the civil power the judge of the acts of ecclesiastical power[62]. The Gallicans themselves never made the sorting: everything was declared "inviolable" wholesale.
One family of errors: placing doctrinal Gallicanism
| Current | Central thesis | Difference from the Gallicanism of 1682 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Radical Conciliarism (14th-15th c.) | The council, even without and against the pope, governs the Church | The matrix: 1682 takes up its article 2 in a "domesticated" version, with no antipope and no deposition | Condemned (Execrabilis 1460, Lateran V 1516) |
| Jansenism (17th-18th c.) | Rigorism on grace; appeal to the council against Unigenitus (1713) | The tactical ally: the Jansenists use the Gallican arsenal (appeal, customs) against Rome | Condemned (Unigenitus 1713) |
| Febronianism (1763) | Germanic transposition: primacy reduced to an honorary primate | The cousin: same theses, another country, an imperial reform programme | Placed on the Index at Rome in 1764 and retracted by Hontheim in 1778[63]; its Austrian relay Eybel refuted by Super soliditate (1786)[64] |
| Josephism (1780-1790) | Austrian caesaro-papism: the State organizes the Church | The secular arm: Joseph II applies what Febronius theorizes | Extinct with Joseph II (1790) |
| Synod of Pistoia (1786) | Jansenist and Italian version of the system | The relay: condemned proposition by proposition | Condemned (Auctorem fidei, 1794) |
| Condemned Catholic Liberalism (19th c.) | Reconciling the Church with the principles of 1789 | The distant heir: no longer the liberties of the Gallican Church, but liberty against the teaching Church | Condemned (Mirari vos 1832, Quanta cura and Syllabus 1864) |
Doctrinal Gallicanism stands at the centre of this map: it is the French and official formulation, the only one voted by an entire national clergy, of which the other currents are the variants, the allies or the heirs. The 19th century also saw the ultramontane counter-offensive that finished it: Joseph de Maistre (Du Pape, 1819) demonstrates the necessity of the sovereign pontiff; Lamennais and L'Avenir (1830-1831) rally Catholic youth to Rome; Dom Guéranger (Institutions liturgiques, 1840) restores the Roman liturgy against the Gallican breviaries; Louis Veuillot and L'Univers carry the fight into the press[65]. When Vatican I opened in 1869, Gallicanism had left in France only "timid defenders"[66].
Discerning the residues today
The system is dead; its reflexes survive in diffuse forms, which must be named without confusing them with doctrine:
- Anti-Romanism of mood: systematic distrust of Roman decisions, a taste for "national specificities" erected into principle. Legitimate attachment to a local tradition (liturgy, saints, customs) becomes Gallican when it sets itself up as opposable to the universal.
- Diffuse conciliarism: the idea that everything should be decided "collegially" against the head (in a diocese against the bishop, in the Church against the pope). True collegiality, Vatican II recalls, exists only cum capite et numquam sine capite[67].
- Free examination of the acts of the magisterium: sorting Roman teachings according to their supposed conformity to "the Gospel" or to "the primitive Church", as Pistoia sorted the decrees of popes. Can. 752 answers it: even without a solemn definition, religious submission is due[68].
Conversely, everything that is not the system is not the system: the just autonomy of the temporal (Gaudium et Spes 76)[69], the real collegiality of bishops with and under the pope, synodality as mutual listening, and the legitimate privileges of particular Churches recognized by Rome (and not wrested against her) belong to the normal life of the Church. The criterion of discernment is simple and settles every case: does appeal to Rome remain open, and does the Roman decision settle the matter? Where the answer is yes, there is no Gallicanism; where a council, a parlement, a custom or a "consent" screens the faithful from Peter, the old system still breathes.
- 1415: sessions 4-5Constance: Haec sanctacrisis decree, never received as dogma
In the midst of the schism, the council assumes the authority needed to resolve the crisis and elect Martin V. See Radical Conciliarism.
- 18 January 1460Pius II: Execrabilisappeal to a future council condemned
The appeal from the Roman pontiff to a future council is condemned: the first lock against article 3 of 1682[70].
- 19 March 1682The Four Articlesthe Gallican system made official
The Assembly of the Clergy of France, drafted by Bossuet, votes the Declaration imposed in every faculty[71].
- 4 August 1690Alexander VIII: Inter multiplicesnullity declared
The constitution quashes the acts of 1681-1682 as prejudicial to the Holy See; royal and episcopal retraction in 1693[72].
- 28 August 1794Pius VI: Auctorem fidei85 propositions condemned
The Pistoian theses (power from the body, the pope a "ministerial head", emancipated bishops) are censured one by one[73].
- 18 July 1870Vatican I: Pastor aeternusthe opposite defined
Immediate universal primacy and infallibility ex sese: three articles directly condemned, the system buried[74].
- 1964 to todayVatican II and the law in forcetrue collegiality, schism defined
Lumen Gentium 22 (numquam sine hoc capite), CIC can. 751 (schism) and 752 (religious submission)[75][76].
To go further
- The full historical narrative: Gallicanism (15th-19th century)
- The medieval matrix: Radical Conciliarism
- The Jansenist ally: Jansenism
- The cousins: Febronianism, Josephism
- The modern heirs: Modernism, Condemned Catholic Liberalism
- The other 16th-century ruptures: Lutheranism, Calvinism, Quietism
Notes and References
A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6, New York, Robert Appleton, 1909, via newadvent.org/cathen/06351a.htm: the Declaration of 1682 "organizes into a system" Gallican ideas and gives them "their official and definitive formula".
1 71Ignispedia article Gallicanism (15th-19th century) (PUBLISHED): event narrative (Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges 1438, Concordat of Bologna 1516, the régale, Assembly of 1681-1682, Civil Constitution 1790, Concordat of 1801, Vatican I 1870). The present article retains only the doctrinal minimum.
2 7 26 49 60A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: Alexander VIII, "by a Constitution dated 4 August 1690, annulled as prejudicial to the Holy See the acts relating both to the régale and to the declaration on ecclesiastical power" (Ignispedia translation).
3 27 72"Auctorem Fidei", The Catholic Encyclopedia, quoted; full English text verified (translation of the bull of 28 August 1794, 85 propositions).
4 37 73First Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Pastor aeternus, 18 July 1870 (DH 3050-3075): primacy of ordinary, supreme, plenary, immediate and universal jurisdiction (chs. 1-3); infallibility ex cathedra (ch. 4).
5 32 45A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: "When that council declared [...] it dealt Gallicanism a mortal blow. Three of the four articles were directly condemned"; and: when the council opened in 1869, Gallicanism had left in France only "timid defenders".
6 66 74A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: "Here, for the first time, those ideas are organized into a system, and receive their official and definitive formula."
8A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: text of article 1 (Saint Peter and his successors received power over the spiritual alone; kings not subject, not deposable, subjects not releasable from the oath). Ignispedia English rendering of the canonical text of Bossuet.
9 10A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: in 1663 the Sorbonne "solemnly declared that it admitted no authority of the pope over the temporal domain of the king, nor his superiority over a general council, nor infallibility without the consent of the Church" (Ignispedia translation).
11A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: three days after the vote, the king orders the registration of the articles in every school and faculty of theology; no one can be admitted to degrees without having defended the doctrine in a thesis.
12A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: text of article 2 (decrees of Constance, sessions 4 and 5, "approved by the Holy See" according to the Declaration; refusal of the opinion that calls them unestablished, unapproved or limited to the time of the schism). Ignispedia translation.
13 15Ignispedia article Radical Conciliarism (PUBLISHED): Haec sancta (1415), Basel and Felix V, Execrabilis (18 January 1460), Lateran V session 11 (19 December 1516).
14 56 57A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: text of article 3 (use of apostolic power regulated by the canons; rules, customs and constitutions of the kingdom inviolable). Ignispedia translation.
16A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: among the liberties, "it was lawful to appeal [from the pope] to a future council, or to have recourse to the appel comme d'abus against acts of ecclesiastical power" (Ignispedia translation).
17 62A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: the Liberties according to Pithou (Les libertez de l'église gallicane, 1594) number 83.
18A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: parliamentary Gallicanism "was often disavowed by the bishops of France, and some twenty of them condemned Pierre Pithou's book" when it was reissued in 1638 by the Dupuy brothers (Ignispedia translation).
19A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: activity of Edmond Richer, syndic of the Sorbonne, and strong revival of Gallicanism at the start of the 17th century after the assassination of Henry IV; Richer, De ecclesiastica et politica potestate, Paris, 1611.
20A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: according to Marca and Bossuet, the liberties would be made of the canons of general and local councils and of the decretals received in France; Fleury: "Of all Christian countries, France has been the most careful to conserve the liberty of her Church" (quoted).
21A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: text of article 4 (the pope has the principal share in questions of faith, but his judgment is not irreformable "unless the consent of the Church concurs"). Ignispedia translation.
22A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: "the papal primacy was limited [...] by the authority of the general council and that of the bishops, who alone could, by their assent, give to his decrees that infallible authority which, of themselves, they lacked".
23Ignispedia article Gallicanism (15th-19th century), sections "The great confrontation: Louis XIV and Innocent XI" and "Pontifical resistance": quarrel of the régale, brief Paternae caritati (11 April 1682).
24"Déclaration des Quatre articles", French-language Wikipedia: Innocent XI refuses canonical institution to appointees; from 1688, 35 dioceses without a holder; censure by the Primate of Hungary as early as October 1682; compromise of September 1693 (promise no longer to impose the teaching, apologies of the prelates, tacit acceptance of the régale by Innocent XII).
25 29A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: in 1693 the designated bishops receive their bulls only after addressing to Innocent XII a letter disavowing everything decreed in that assembly on ecclesiastical power; the king himself writes to the pope (14 September 1693) revoking the edict of 1682.
28A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: Bossuet conducted the defence "on the ground of theology and history" in his Defensio declarationis, "which was not to see the light until 1730"; with it Gallicanism had reached its full development.
30Second Vatican Council, pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes, § 76, 7 December 1965: just autonomy of earthly realities; refusal of an autonomy that would make the political community the arbiter of religious questions.
31 47 69Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. VII, 28 August 1794: the bishop cannot decide "according to his own judgment" against the customs, exemptions and reservations "without the permission and intervention of the superior hierarchical power", "induces schism and the overthrow of the hierarchical regime".
33 41First Vatican Council, Pastor aeternus, ch. 4 (DH 3074): "definitiones [...] ex sese, non autem ex consensu Ecclesiae, irreformabiles esse".
34 46A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: diffusion in the mid-18th century in the Low Countries (Van Espen); Hontheim under the pseudonym of Febronius introduces it into Germany (Febronianism, Josephism); the "council" of Pistoia (1786) attempts to acclimatize it in Italy.
35"Auctorem Fidei", The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1, New York, Robert Appleton, 1907, via newadvent: bull published in 1794, "85 articles drawn from the synod of Pistoia catalogued and condemned".
36Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. II, 28 August 1794: the power given by God to the Church to be communicated to pastors, "in the sense that from the community of the faithful there derives into the pastors the power of ministry", heretical. Ignispedia translation on the verified text.
38Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. III, 28 August 1794: the Roman pontiff a "ministerial head", receiving his power not from Christ in Peter but from the Church, heretical. Ignispedia translation on the verified text.
39Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. VI, 28 August 1794: the bishop would have received from Christ "all the rights necessary for the good government of his diocese", with no need for higher dispositions, schismatical, or at least erroneous. Ignispedia translation.
40Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. VIII, 28 August 1794: the rights of the bishop could be "neither altered nor impeded", with a return to "primitive rights" at his judgment, "induces schism and the overthrow of the hierarchical regime". Ignispedia translation.
42Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, prop. XI, 28 August 1794: no decree, "even of the major sees", receivable without the approval of the diocesan synod, "false, seditious", fomenting "schism and heresy". Ignispedia translation.
43Pius VI, Auctorem fidei, § 10, 28 August 1794: "May the voice of Peter never fall silent in his Chair..." (after Saint Peter Chrysologus, Letter to Eutyches). Ignispedia translation on the verified text.
44A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: the diffusion was "brutally stopped by the Revolution, which took away its principal support by overthrowing thrones"; facing the Revolution, nothing remained for the bishops but "to bind themselves closely to the Holy See" (Ignispedia translation).
48Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium, § 22, 21 November 1964: the episcopal college has authority only "simul cum capite suo Romano Pontifice et numquam sine hoc capite" (with its head, the Roman pontiff, and never without this head).
50 67 75CCC 880-887: institution of the primacy, infallibility of the pope ex cathedra and of the college with its head, religious submission due to the authentic magisterium even when not definitive.
51CIC 1983, can. 751 (vatican.va): "Schism is called [...] the refusal of submission to the Supreme Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."
52 76CIC 1983, cann. 331, 333, 336 (vatican.va): the pope head of the College, supreme and universal power; the college acts only with its head and never without him.
53CIC 1983, can. 752 (vatican.va): religious submission of intellect and will due to the doctrines of the Supreme Pontiff or of the College, even without proclamation by a decisive act.
54 68CCC 880-883: the pope "perpetual and visible principle" of unity; the infallibility "with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed".
55Pius II, bull Execrabilis, 18 January 1460: condemnation of appeal from the Roman pontiff to a future council. Cf. article Radical Conciliarism.
58 70Council of Lateran V, session 11, bull Pastor aeternus, 19 December 1516: reprobation of the conciliarist theses. Cf. article Radical Conciliarism.
59A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoting Fleury: "Of all Christian countries, France has been the most careful to conserve the liberty of her Church" (quoted).
61Hontheim, De statu ecclesiae et legitima potestate romani pontificis, "Bullioni", 1763, under the pseudonym of Justinus Febronius. Condemned at Rome on 27 February 1764 by Clement XIII, who orders the bishops of Germany to make the work disappear by brief of 21 May 1764; placed on the Index; retraction signed in 1778 and transmitted to Rome on 15 November 1778. Dedicated article: Febronianism (in progress).
63Pius VI, brief Super soliditate, 28 November 1786: condemnation of the Febronian pamphlet of Eybel (Introductio in jus ecclesiasticum). Cf. article Gallicanism (15th-19th century).
64A. Dégert, "Gallicanism", quoted: after the fall of Napoleon, "the work of Lamennais, of L'Avenir [...], the influence of Dom Guéranger" deprived Gallicanism of its partisans (Ignispedia translation). Joseph de Maistre, Du Pape, Lyon, 1819; Dom Guéranger, Institutions liturgiques, Paris, 1840.
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