Movement or tendency within the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church (® CATí“LICA, APOSTí“LICA Y ROMANA, CHURCH). Despite its medieval background, it reached great heights in the 17th century, especially with the “Four Gallican Articles” of 1682, a declaration by the French bishops at the request of King Louis XIV. For the “Gallicans”, the national church had to be above the Roman see in fundamental aspects. They recognized the papal authority, although they tried to preserve the independence and organization of the French church. In other countries “Gallicanism” came to mean independence from the national church. Some religious groups unrelated to Rome still use that name.
There are three fundamental claims in historical Gallicanism: royal sovereignty in temporal matters; authority of the crown and the French episcopate in case of excessive interference by the pope; and the authority of general church councils above the Roman pontiff. We observe these characteristics in various governments and episcopates in certain periods of history.
The “Gallicanism” of the French should not be confused with Anglicanism, as the Church of England (Anglican) departed from Roman jurisdiction in the 16th century. It is important to note that the Anglican word does not designate a movement but an entire church.
Source: Dictionary of Religions Denominations and Sects
Dominant attitudes and criteria in large French sectors in the 17th century, which can be synthesized in the desire that religion be put at the service of the monarchical absolutism of the Bourbons.
Politically, Gallicanism tends to subordinate the Church and its hierarchy (Pope and Bishops) to the service of the King. In religious matters, he is inclined to consider the episcopal consensus on the influence of the Roman Primate and, consequently, to create a national church, not schismatic but autonomous in its decisions, including doctrinal and moral ones.
Although latent at various times in the history of France, it was in 1686 when Bossuet compiled and encouraged the “Declaration of the Gallican Clergy”, a translation to the ecclesiastical spheres, of the absolutism of Louis XIV (I am the state). That attitude and doctrine was repudiated and condemned by Alexander VIII with the bull “Inter multiples”, of August 4, 1690, and again by Pius VI in 1794 with the Constitution “Autorem Fidei” of August 28, 1794 (Denz. 1598)
Pedro Chico González, Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy, Editorial Bruño, Lima, Peru 2006
Source: Dictionary of Catechesis and Religious Pedagogy
DecEc
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Gallicanism was a French theological movement whose roots go back to the Middle Ages. It was essentially an attempt to limit the power of the papacy in France by means of the “liberties of the French Church” (de l’Eglise gallicane, hence “Gallicanism”). In 1516 the >Pragmatic sanction was replaced by a concordat giving the King of France the right to appoint bishops. There were two forms of Gallicanism: a “royal Gallicanism”, which limited the power of the papacy over the national Churches, and an “episcopal Gallicanism”, which limited the power of the papacy over individual bishops. The fear of Gallicanism was one of the reasons why >Tiento did not produce any document on the Church.
France denied receipt of some of the reform decrees of Trent. In 1663 the Sorbonne in Paris, which had had Gallican tendencies almost since its foundation (1257), published a declaration which was taken up in substance by an assembly of the French clergy held in 1682, in a formula known as “the four Gallican articles”, written by the great orator and bishop JB Bossuet (1627-1704). Pope Alexander VIII condemned them in 1680, and so did King Louis XIV in 1693.
The first article denied any form of temporal power of the pope and rejected his authority in temporal and civil matters. The second recognized the decrees of the council of Constance that established the supremacy of the council over the pope. The third insisted on the inviolability of the ancient liberties of the Gallican Church. The fourth affirmed that the decrees of the pope were not irreformable without the consent of the Church.
Gallicanism lasted as a trend for more than a century, showing itself to be independent of Rome even in minor matters, such as the edition of liturgical books. Although it was no longer a real problem after 1830, when ultramontanism began to take hold, >Pius IX’s Syllabus (1864) and >Vatican 1 completely crushed what remained of Gallicanism. When interpreting Vatican 1, it should be kept in mind that the council had Gallicanism in mind when formulating definitions of the papacy.
At the beginning of the 20th century a small dissenting Gallican Church arose in southwestern France with its own schismatic bishops; it still exists, but shows signs of internal division.
Part of the mentality of Gallicanism appeared in the Germanic countries in the form of >Febronianism and >Josephinism; the dominant inspiration of the latter was however the Enlightenment.
Christopher O´Donell – Salvador Pié-Ninot, Dictionary of Ecclesiology, San Pablo, Madrid 1987
Source: Dictionary of Ecclesiology
The concept and the word “Gallicanism” were formed in the context of discussions about the primacy of the Roman pontiff in the 19th century. Various factors of a doctrinal and historical nature concurred in its formation, with France as its geographical center (the “Gaul” of the ancients, from which the word derives) and which were highlighted as of the 17th century.
This term is understood as a set of doctrines that tend to limit the jurisdiction of the Holy See in the French Church. In the De ecclesiastica et de politica potestate, by E. Richer (161 1), radical theses of a political-ecclesiastical Gallicanism are found. The best known formulation of Gallicanism is that proposed by the Declaratio cleri gallicani, of March 19, 1682, which is commonly believed to have been the editor of JB Bossuet.
The desire to avoid a schism prevented the Holy See from explicitly condemning these four articles. The condemnation, indirectly, is found in the brief Inter multiplices, of Alexander VIII (1690), in successive decrees of the Holy Office and in the constitution Auctorem fidei of Pius VI (1794). Gallicanism was dogmatically condemned with the constitution Fastor aeternus of the Vatican Council I. The influence of Gallicanism was felt in various systems of jurisdictionalism and in the interference in the life of the Church that manifested itself in Europe in the XVII-XVIII centuries.
M. Semerano
Bibl.: Y Congar, Ecclesiology from San Agustín to our days, BAC, Madrid 1976. 243-257′ Gallicanism, in ERC, III, 1258-1261.
PACOMIO, Luciano, Encyclopedic Theological Dictionary, Divine Word, Navarra, 1995
Source: Encyclopedic Theological Dictionary
The concept of g. in the sense of a theory and a practice that are maintained through various epochs, it comes from the historiography of the nineteenth century. in the g. Two aspects must be distinguished: first, the historical manifestations of a French national opposition, linked to the specific relationship of the French monarchy with the Church, against the centralism of the papal curia, which granted the State numerous rights of an ecclesiastical nature; secondly, the construction of a canonical theory with Caesaropapist, conciliarist and Episcopalian ingredients, which, formulated at the end of the Middle Ages based on the historical position of the French monarchy, became a political manifesto in the Declaration of Gallican Liberties under Louis XIV (1682).
The de facto and de jure situation of the French monarchy vis-à-vis the Church (right of patronage and royalty) was determined in the early Middle Ages by the sacred idea of royalty: the king, by reason of his anointing, occupied in the Church a quasi-official position; in the Frankish kingdom he is also “king of bishops”. The episcopate collaborates with the king in the provincial councils and already early acquires the awareness of a solidary responsibility; and in connection with this he obtains privileges and becomes the first order of the kingdom. That time of origins has left legendary memories: of Clovis and “saint” Charlemagne. Nourished by these memories, the g. will promote the cult of antiquity.
The theoretical basis of g. later, which was formulated in numerous studies of the history of the Church and of law in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (P. Pithou, P. Dupuy, P. de Marca, E. Richer), lies in the idea that the required freedoms Gallican are the liberties of the “primitive Church”, which were only preserved without admixture of error in the ecclesia Gallicana. In addition, the French monarchy had always been the protector of the Church and of the supreme prophet (Merovingians, Carolingians, etc.).
The close union mentioned above between the king and the Church (because of privileges, sometimes by custom) became the main argument for the claims of the French monarchy in ecclesiastical territory.
The resistance of the curia against the interventions of the French monarchy produced a decisive reaction. At the time of the -> Gregorian reform, the g. it is defined by opposition to Roman centralism and the doctrine of plenitudo potestatis in spiritualibus et temporalibus. This opposition will lead to the conflict between Philip the Fair (of France) and Boniface VIII, famous and significant for its dramatic character, decisive for the total victory obtained by the king, fruitful for the multiple controversial works that aroused by Philip’s appeal to Public opinion.
The royal claims (royalties) were formulated by the jurists of the crown (legistas), rejecting the papal aspiration to plenary potestatis (P. Dubois, P. Flotte, G. de Plaisians, Juan de Paris); but these were not content with proclaiming the royal privileges, but tried, for their part, to curtail the rights of the Church.
At the end of the Middle Ages, and later, the same pretensions are asserted, together with a constant interference in Church affairs: in the name of the king, a competence is affirmed in matters of liturgy, canon law and the election of bishops.
The great -> Western schism revealed these trends. At the same time that it disqualifies the pope for the government of the Church, it makes the king the supreme authority. The denial of obedience in 1396 gives the Church of France effective autonomy. Even more important was the work of the late medieval ecclesiologists (Nicolas de Clémanges, John Gerson, Peter d’Ailly: in connection with William of Ockham), who asserted the superiority of the council over the pope (-> conciliarism) . Political demands are now based on political arguments. From this moment we can speak of g. theological.
Assemblies had already been held under Philip the Fair…