THE SEPARATION OF

CHURCH AND STATE IN FRANCE

As we are on the eve of witnessing a controversy which will solve the question of the relations between Church and State, it is of interest to consider the place held by the Catholic religion in our historical development, and which it continues to occupy in our national life. Aside from all political opinion and religious belief, it is proper to examine whether France is a nation in which such a separation can be effected, whether the State can abruptly ignore the Church, and whether the Church can consent to ignore the State. It can scarcely be denied that the very existence of France is due to the Catholic mission entrusted by the Church of Gaul to the Frankish chieftains who substituted the Catholic rule for the Arian heretic rule of the Burgundians and Visigoths. This mission was accepted in a modified form by the French Sovereign, who thereby assumed the double character of armed missionary of the Church and of head of the people. He considered himself as the representative of a nation which corresponded to a geographical unit, and it was under the protection of this shield that the French nation was formed.

The Frankish chieftain assumed a sacred character by the anointment from the 'Ampulla Remensis,' while retaining his national individuality. He was the Eldest Son of the Church, crossing the mountains to defend the Pope against the Lombards, and insuring the independence of the Pontiff by establishing and guaranteeing his temporal domains. He thus exerted an influence over the Pope through his temporal power, for the reason that he was free to protect him or to menace him in his worldly possessions, while, from the spiritual standpoint, he stood before the Vicar of Jesus Christ in the position of one anointed of the Lord and clothed with a sacred character.

Such was the privileged position inherited by the first chieftains of the race of Capet. By them were established the union of the

From the time of Charlemagne the Papacy had recognised France as a privileged nation. Later on, Gregory the Seventh and Urban the Second made repeated overtures to France.

temporal and the spiritual powers, and the distinction existing between them. These two powers were united in France for the reason that the King would not have been the King of France' if he had not been clothed with a sacred character, with a specific mission; and, on the other hand, France would not have retained its personality, its so clearly-defined national character, if, like the other States, it had been merged in the universality of the Church. Moreover, the Universal Church, the Papacy, looked favourably upon this personification of France in its kings, for the Kingdom of France represented, in the eyes of the Church, a power capable of defending the Catholic cause and making it prevail throughout the world. This exceptional position of the French Sovereign saved him from strife with the Papacy through conflict between the temporal and the spiritual powers. In the German Empire, which was less favoured, differences sprang up between the Pope and the Emperor. It was the heir to the Roman conception of the Empire, the successor of Charlemagne, the German Emperor, who, as a matter of course, entered into conflict with the head of the Church, for the reason that these two powers both aspired to the supreme rule of Christendom.

Notwithstanding the differences between the Kings of France and the Pontiffs of Rome, it can be said that France remained foreign to the strife concerning the Investitures.3 Hardly a century after this strife, after the innumerable acts of cruelty and horror which it had caused, the figure of St. Louis appeared upon the throne of France, showing in marked contrast French royalty, which represented at the same time the national character, and the universal religion resplendent with light and justice. There was also a great difference between the King of France and those of other countries. The one who most resembled him was the King of England, who likewise represented a rising nationality. But the King of England was not anointed of the Lord; he was a vassal of the Pope. The territory over which he ruled had been conquered by monks, the soldiers of Rome, and for that reason the Pope imposed his suzerainty upon him, sometimes rather severely, and, in fact, so strongly that he resorted to a schism to throw off the yoke, and founded a national Church independent of Rome.

It was by ignoring these essential principles that M. Waldeck-Rousseau could say before the French Parliament: For centuries two doctrines have striven for possession of the world: that which confers supremacy in the State to the religious authority, and that which attributes it to the civil authority.'

3 As regards the Investitures, see Luchaire, Manuel des Investitures Capétiennes; Mgr. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles; Viollet, Histoire des Institutions de la France. The Papacy would never recognise the Imperial investitures in Germany. In France, on the contrary, at the commencement of the twelfth century the compromise effected between Paschal the Second and Philip the First gave the Pope the right of investiture by the crosier and to the King the right of investiture by the ring.

St. Louis only revived the privileges granted to the Crown of France by Paschal the Second.

The privileged situation of the Kings of France, its superiority over that of the other Sovereigns, is due solely to the doctrine of the ' union and distinction of powers.' When the quarrel about the Investitures resulted in victory for the Papacy, it seemed as though the Holy See, which victory had rendered very ambitious, were about to enter into a violent conflict with the Kings of France, but the strife with Philip the Fair and the scene at Agnani had no sequel. The Papacy became weak through captivity and on account of the schism, and when it became necessary, for the first time, to settle the relations between the French Church and the Holy See by a public document or charter, King Charles the Seventh, in the year 1438, enacted, under the name of 'Pragmatic Sanction,' a most patriotic régime, a system which could give the Church of France the greatest possible independence and self-control in the Universal Church.5

The 'Pragmatic Sanction' was not a bilateral contract; it was an act of the King having no similarity to a compact with the Pope, and it remained in force during four reigns. In spite of the various protests raised against it by the Papacy at certain periods, it never endangered the union between the King and the Pope, between the Church and the nation, and the Sovereigns who made use of it retained the title, the power, and the prestige of Eldest Sons of the Church.'

Nevertheless, the French royalty and the Papacy had both been transformed, and circumstances rendered it necessary to make an agreement, a compact between them, in order to avoid all conflict. between the two powers. At the time the Emperor Charles the Fifth sent his German mercenaries against Rome and made the Pope a captive, and Henry the Eighth broke with Rome and founded the Church of England, Francis the First and Leo the Tenth inaugurated the system which was afterwards adopted in the Concordat. What a great contrast to the present situation, which shows us the German Emperor and the King of England striving to gain the good graces of the Holy See at a time when France is destroying the Concordat. Another contradiction is that, while the same Sovereign who signed the Concordat also established the French protectorate in the East, the same statesmen who are now destroying the ancient bond are deliberately sacrificing the traditions and secular advantages of France in the Oriental countries.

The system of the Concordat, which they wish to destroy, dates back four hundred years. It represents one of our oldest political 5 It is interesting to observe how the French of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries understood the rights of the King and of the Pope. Under Francis the First, Duprat and the Parliament found the 'Pragmatic Sanction' insufficient. They were more royalist than the King: they wished to make the King a spiritual Sovereign, not with a view to opposing the Pope, but in order to create a parallel power. See also Richelieu's theory upon absolute monarchy according to Le Bret's principles.

traditions, which for four centuries has assured the relations between the Church and the French State. It is not correct to say that the system of the Concordat dates from 1802, and that it is of revolutionary origin. If it were so, those who wish to destroy it would not attack it any more than they attack the Civil Code or any other revolutionary law. But the Concordat of 1802 is one of the things that the genius of Bonaparte borrowed from ancient France; it was one of the doctrines with which he reconstituted the ancient régime, and nothing was more natural or more necessary for him than to thus continue the past. It is difficult to conceive that France should exist without this feature which makes her a national being, leading its own life, in the midst of the universal religion, and without which she could not develop.

The rule of the Concordat has, therefore, been the normal régime of France from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the present day. Before examining how it has been violated and amended, let us stop to consider the system in itself. It is the essentially modern conception of the relations between Church and State. In ancient times all governments united the spiritual and the temporal powers in one. The Hebrews, Chinese, Hindoos, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, the nations which had formed themselves into republics as well as those ruled by kings, had adopted the theocratic régime resulting from a confusion of the civil and religious powers. To destroy despotism, to free the citizen crushed by the all-powerful State, which tyrannised over his conscience and tortured his body, the words of Christ were necessary: Give to God the things that are God's, and to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's.' By these words

Theocracy formed the basis of governments in ancient history, whether ruled over by a Sovereign or organised into republics of various forms, such as the republics of the Jews, of Greece, and of Rome. Auguries indicated the decisions or steps to be taken or followed in matters of moment at Sparta, at Athens, and at Rome, and it was the high priests who interpreted them. God Himself spoke to the Hebrew people through the voice of His prophets. The continuation of this system of government still exists among the Mussulmans. The Koran is the Prophet Mahomet speaking in the name of God; the Sovereign represents Him, and alone directs the destinies of the nation.

* St. Peter had refused to pay the usual tribute of the Temple, but Jesus interfered and said to him: From whom do the kings exact the tribute? Is it from their own children or from strangers?' Peter replied: From strangers.' And Jesus said to him: The children are therefore free. Nevertheless, in order not to create disturbance, and in order not to scandalise them, go and pay for yourself and for me' (Matt. xvii. 24-27). He caused tribute to be paid which He was not obliged to pay, being one of the people, for fear of causing the slightest disturbance to the public order. Christ never encroached upon the authority of the magistrates, but respected the temporal power in all its forms. One of His followers said to Him: Master, order my brother to divide with me.' Man,' answered Jesus, who has constituted

me your judge to make partitions?' (Luke xii. 13, 14).

the separation of the two powers was established, the system of government was changed according to more modern ideas, and the march of humanity was modified. But, in order that it might have its full force in our country, it was necessary that it should be put in operation by the leader of Catholicity and by the head of the French nation.

It cannot be forgotten, it is true, that several Popes transgressed these principles through their theocratic theories and by seeking to interfere in the temporal matters of the States. But the prerogative of intervention was seldom exercised except by way of arbitration, at the spontaneous request of the Kings and their people. The theories thus put in practice do not go back further than the eleventh century, and the Church has never recognised them as her own. The great councils of the fifteenth century, held in Bâle and Constance, repudiated these theories and proclaimed the complete independence of princes in temporal matters, and it can be affirmed that the Church has, ever since its foundation, always maintained the same doctrines, as it results from the commentaries on the words of Christ by the Fathers of the Church and the first Popes.

The first document upon this subject brought to light by the historians is a letter which Pope St. Gelasius addressed, in 494, to the Emperor Theodosius, the patron of the Eutychian heresy :

There exist two principal powers, august Emperor [wrote Pope Gelasius], by which the world is ruled: the power of the Kings and the power of the Pontiffs. . . . If, therefore, the ministers of religion obey your laws in everything that concerns the temporal order, because they know that your power comes from God, tell me with what love should you not render obedience to the dispensers of the holy mysteries?

So it was that a Pope, at the end of the fifth century, proclaimed that the two powers were respectively independent, and that, inasmuch as the priest submits himself to the civil power in temporal matters, so also should the civil power submit itself to the priests in matters of spiritual order.

One century later another Pope, one of the greatest in history, interpreted the Catholic doctrine and tradition in the same manner. In 592, St. Gregory the Great received a law from the Emperor Mauritius, with an order to publish it; and although it appeared contrary to the interests of the Church, he consented to its publication in the provinces of the West which were subject to him, but he asked the Emperor to revoke the law in these terms:

Subject as I am to your power, I have published your law in the various provinces of the world, but, as I consider it contrary to the law of God, I should not fulfil my duty if I did not submit to you certain observations through which I will accomplish, at the same time, two imperative obligations: that of obedience