Charitas

Encyclical of Pope Pius VI
on the Civil Oath in France

April 13, 1791

To Our Beloved Sons, the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, to Our Venerable Brothers the Archbishops and Bishops, and to Our Beloved Children the Capitulars, Clergy and People of the Kingdom of France.

Beloved Sons, Venerable Brothers and Beloved Children, We give you greeting and Our Apostolic Blessing.

Love, which is patient and kindly, as the Apostle Paul says, supports and endures all things as long as a hope remains that mildness will prevent the growth of incipient errors. But if errors increase daily and reach the point of creating schism, the laws of love itself, together with Our duty, demand that We reveal to the erring their horrible sin and the heavy canonical penalties which they have incurred. For this sternness will lead those who are wandering from the way of truth to recover their senses, reject their errors, and come back to the Church, which opens its arms like a kind mother and embraces them on their return. The rest of the faithful in this way will be quickly delivered from the deceits of false pastors who enter the fold by ways other than the door, and whose only aim is theft, slaughter, and destruction.

2. With these divine precepts in mind, We have just learned of the war against the Catholic religion which has been started by the revolutionary thinkers who as a group form a majority in the National Assembly of France. We have wept in God's presence, shared Our sorrow with the cardinals, and proclaimed public and private prayers. Then We wrote Louis, on July 9, 1790, and repeatedly encouraged him not to confirm the Civil Constitution of the Clergy which would lead his people into error and schism. For it was intolerable that a political assembly should change the universal practice of the Church, disregard the opinions of the holy Fathers and the decrees of the councils, overturn the order of the hierarchy and control the election of bishops, destroy episcopal sees, and introduce a worse form into the Church after removing the better.

3. We sent two briefs on the following day to the archbishops of Bordeaux and Vienne who were with the King, urging them in fatherly fashion to advise the king that if he lent his authority to this Constitution, his kingdom would be in schism; furthermore We would regard any bishops appointed in accordance with its decrees as schismatic and lacking all ecclesiastical jurisdiction. To remove all doubt that Our concern was solely with matters of religion and to silence the enemies of this Apostolic See, We gave orders that the collection of taxes from French revenues should be discontinued, although these taxes were due for Our services from unbroken custom and earlier agreements.

4. The king would certainly have refrained from approving the Constitution, but the National Assembly finally forced him to lend his authority to the Constitution as his letters to Us on July 28, September 6, and December 16 attest. He besought Us insistently to approve five, and later seven, articles at least provisionally. These articles were so similar in tenor that they formed a comprehensive summary of the new Constitution.

5. We saw at once, of course, that We could approve or tolerate none of the articles since they were at variance with canonical regulations. However, We did not want to give Our enemies an opportunity to deceive the nations by claiming that We were opposed to every sort of negotiations: therefore We told the King in Our letter of August 17 that We would consider the articles carefully and consult with the cardinals, who would meet to discuss every aspect of the proposal. After the cardinals had met on September 24 and December 16 to discuss the first two articles, they decided unanimously to request the opinions of the French bishops on these articles in case they could show some canonical reason for approval. Such a reason was not easily imaginable at this distance from France, as We had said earlier in other letters to the King.

6. In the meanwhile, We were greatly consoled when a majority of the French bishops firmly opposed the Constitution and attacked every point in it which referred to the government of the Church. Our consolation was increased when Cardinal Rochefoucauld, the archbishop of Aix, and thirty other archbishops and bishops appealed to Us for assistance in meeting such great dangers. On October 10 they sent an explanation of the main points contained in the Constitution of the Clergy and requested Our help and advice.

We were further consoled because many other bishops joined the thirty in accepting this explanation. Only four out of one hundred and thirty-one bishops dissented. A great number of capitulars and most of the parish priests and lower clergy also joined the bishops. So this explanation, accepted with harmonious unanimity, should be regarded as the teaching of the entire French Church.

7. We Ourselves immediately engaged in the task of examining all the articles of the Constitution. The Assembly, although it heard the unanimous views of the French Church, did not abandon its design, but tried all the more to destroy the firmness of the bishops. But it knew well that none of the metropolitans or the senior bishops would agree to ordain new bishops who were elected in the municipal districts by laity, heretics, unbelievers, and Jews as the published decrees commanded. It also understood that this foolish form of Church government could nowhere survive, for without the bishops the entire appearance of the church would vanish.