The Organic Articles

A name given to a law regulating public worship, comprising 77
articles relative to Catholicism, and 44 relative to
Protestantism, presented by order of Napoleon to the Tribunate and
the legislative body at the same time that he made these two
bodies vote on the Concordat itself. Together with the Concordat,
the Organic Articles were published as a law, under the same title
and the same preamble, 8 April, 1802, and the various governments
in France which have since followed one another, down to 1905,
have always professed to regard the Organic Articles as
inseparable from the Concordat. Pope Pius VII however, as early as
24 May, 1802, declared formally, in a consistorial allocution,
that these articles had been promulgated without his knowledge,
and that he could not accept them without modification.

The Organic Articles which refer to Catholicism fall under four
titles.

�  Title I deals with "the government of the Catholic Church in
its general relations to the rights and constitution of the
State." In virtue of these articles, the authorization of the
Government is necessary for the publication and execution of a
papal document in France; for the exercise of ecclesiastical
functions by any representative of the pope, for the holding of a
National Council or a Diocesan Synod. Moreover, the Council of
State, thanks to the formality of the appel comme d'abus, may
declare that there is abus in any given acts of the ecclesiastical
authority, and thus thrust itself into the affairs of the Church.

�  Title II deals with the ministers of public worship whose
powers it defines: the rules and regulations of seminaries must be
submitted to the State, the " Declaration of 1682 " must be taught
in the seminaries, the number of those to be ordained must be
fixed yearly by the Government; the cures of important parishes
cannot be appointed by the bishop without the consent of the
State.

�  Under Title III, devoted to public worship, the legislature
forbids public processions in towns where there are adherents of
different creeds. It fixes the dress of the priests, who must be
dressed " in the French fashion and in black", it prescribes that
there shall be only one catechism for all the churches of France.

�  Article IV has reference to the boundaries of dioceses and
parishes, and to the salary of ministers of religion.

It was not long, however, before many of these articles became a
dead letter. M. Emile Ollivier, in his speech from the tribune. 11
July, 1868, said: "It would be difficult to cite even one or two
that are still kept, even these are not enforced every day but are
only dragged from their nothingness and obscurity on great
occasions, when there is need of seeming to do something while
doing nothing." Even the Third Republic never claimed the right to
prevent the bringing of papal documents into France, to fix the
dress of the priests, to insist on the teaching of the Declaration
of 1682; and the judgments Tanquam ab abusu pronounced by the
Council of State against the bishops, have always been mildly
platonic.

The Organic Articles as such were the outcome, philosophically
speaking, of a certain Gallican and Josephist spirit, whereby the
State sought to rule the Church. Historically speaking, the French
Legislature in drawing up these articles, which limited the scope
of the Concordat, had set an unfortunate example, followed twenty
years later by the various German governments, which having in
their turn treated with the Holy See, hastened to counteract their
own agreements by means of certain territorial enactments.

The law of 1905, which separated Church and State in France,
abrogated the Organic Articles at the same time that it abrogated
the Concordat. (See CONCORDAT.)

GEORGES GOYAU
Transcribed by Tomas Hancil

From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc.

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the  entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this  worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For  more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.

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