Word of the Day: Gallicanism

GALLICANISM. A cluster of doctrines, favored by the French Church, that tended to limit the authority of the Pope in relation to the bishops, and to subordinate the rights of the Church to the power of the State. The first exponents of Gallicanism were the Franciscans William of Ockham, John of Jandun, and Marsilius of Padua in the fourteenth century, who denied the divine origin of the papal primacy and would subject its exercise to the will of civil authority. Gallicanism became Conciliarism after the Great Western Schism, claiming the superiority of council over the Pope, and promoted by John Gerson (1363-1429) and Peter d'Ailly (1350-1420). The French Revolution drove the bishops into the arms of the Pope and dealt a mortal blow to Gallicanism, but the basic idea was still alive until the First Vatican Council formally condemned it in 1870.

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Gallicanism was the 'Catholic' form of the heresy of Erastianism, discussed yesterday. It had a long life in France.

The Four Gallican Articles (1682) were

1. St. Peter and the popes, his successors, and the Church itself have dominion from God only over things spiritual and not over things temporal and civil. Therefore, kings and sovereigns are not beholden to the church in deciding temporal things. They cannot be deposed by the church and their subjects cannot be absolved by the church from their oaths of allegiance.
2. The authority in things spiritual belongs to the Holy See and the successors of St. Peter, and does not affect the decrees of the Council of Constance contained in the fourth and fifth sessions of that council, which is observed by the Gallican Church. The Gallicans do not approve of casting slurs on those decrees.
3. The exercise of this Apostolic authority (puissance) must be regulated in accordance with canons (rules) established by the Holy Spirit through the centuries of Church history.
4. Although the pope has the chief part in questions of faith, and his decrees apply to all the Churches, and to each Church in particular, yet his judgment is not irreformable, at least pending the consent of the Church.