- Proceedings against suspicious teachers and undisciplined
pupils.
The secular clergy remains, better protected, it seems, and by a less
precarious statute, for this statute is an international and
diplomatic act, a solemn and bilateral treaty which binds the French
government, not only to itself but to another government, to an
independent sovereign and the recognized head of the whole Catholic
Church. - Consequently, it is of prime importance to rebuild and raise
higher the barriers which, in ancient France, separated the secular
clergy from the Pope, the customs and regulations which constituted
the Gallican Church a province apart in the Church universal, the
ecclesiastic franchises and servitudes which restricted the Pope's
jurisdiction in order that the jurisdiction of the king might be
extended. All these servitudes to the advantage of the lay sovereign,
and all these franchises to the prejudice of the ecclesiastic
sovereign, are maintained and increased by the new statute. By virtue
of the Concordat and by consent of the Pope, the First Consul acquires
the same rights and privileges in relation to the Holy See as the old
government,"[72] that is to say the same exclusive right to nominate
future French cardinals and to have as many as before in the sacred
college, the same right to exclude in the sacred conclave, the same
faculty of being the unique dispenser in France of high ecclesiastical
places and the prerogative of appointing all the bishops and
archbishops on French territory.
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