The National Assembly, after having
heard the report of the ecclesiastical committee, has decreed and
do decree the following as constitutional articles:
Title I
ARTICLE I. Each department shall form a single diocese, and
each diocese shall have the same extent and the same limits as the
department.
II. The seat of the bishoprics of the eighty-three departments
of the kingdom shall be established as follows: that of the
department of the Lower Seine at Rouen; that of the department of
Calvados at Bayeux.
All other bishoprics in the eighty-three departments of the
kingdom, which are not included by name in the present article,
are, and forever shall be, abolished.
The kingdom shall be divided into ten metropolitan districts of
which the sees shall be situated at Rouen, Rheims, Besancon,
Rennes, Paris, Bourges, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Aix, and Lyons. These
archbishoprics shall have the following denominations: that of
Rouen shall be called the Archbishopric of the Coast of the
Channel.
IV. No church or parish of France nor any French citizen may
acknowledge upon any occasion, or upon any pretext whatsoever, the
authority of an ordinary bishop or of an archbishop whose see
shall be under the supremacy of a foreign power, nor that of his
representatives residing in France or elsewhere; without
prejudice, however, to the unity of the faith and the intercourse
which shall be maintained with the visible head of the universal
Church, as hereafter provided.
VI. A new arrangement and division of all the parishes of the
kingdom shall be undertaken immediately in concert with the bishop
and the district administration.
XX. All titles and offices other than those mentioned in the
present constitution, dignities, canonries, prebends, half
prebends, chapels, chaplainships, both in cathedral and collegiate
churches, all regular and secular chapters for either sex,
abbacies and priorships, both regular and in commendam, for
either sex, as well as all other benefices and prestimonies in
general, of whatever kind or denomination, are from the day of
this decree extinguished and abolished and shall never be
reestablished in any form.
Title II
ARTICLE I. Beginning with the day of publication of the present
decree, there shall be but one mode of choosing bishops and parish
priests, namely that of election.
II. All elections shall be by ballot and shall be decided by
the absolute majority of the votes.
III. The election of bishops shall take place according to the
forms and by the electoral body designated in the decree of
December 22, 1789, for the election of members of the departmental
assembly.
VI. The election of a bishop can only take place or be
undertaken upon Sunday, in the principal church of the chief town
of the department, at the close of the parish mass, at which all
the electors are required to be present.
VII. In order to be eligible to a bishopric, one must have
fulfilled for fifteen years at least the duties of the church
ministry in the diocese, as a parish priest, officiating minister,
or curate, or as superior, or as directing vicar of the seminary.
XIX. The new bishop may not apply to the pope for any form of
confirmation, but shall write to him, as to the visible head of
the universal Church, as a testimony to the unity of faith and
communion maintained with him.
XXI. Before the ceremony of consecration begins, the bishop
elect shall take a solemn oath, in the presence of the municipal
officers, of the people, and of the clergy, to guard with care the
faithful of his diocese who are confided to him, to be loyal to
the nation, the law, and the king, and to support with all his
power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and
accepted by the king.
XXV. The election of the parish priests shall take place
according to the forms and by the electors designated in the
decree of December 22, 1789, for the election of members of the
administrative assembly of the district.
XI. Bishoprics and cures shall be looked upon as vacant until
those elected to fill them shall have taken the oath above
mentioned.
Title III
ARTICLE I. The ministers of religion, performing as they do the
first and most important functions of society and forced to live
continuously in the place where they discharge the offices to
which they have been called by the confidence of the people, shall
be supported by the nation.
II. Every bishop, priest, and officiating clergyman in a chapel
of ease shall be furnished with a suitable dwelling, on condition,
however, that the occupant shall make all the necessary current
repairs. This shall not affect at present, in any way, those
parishes where the priest now receives a money equivalent instead
of his dwelling. The departments shall, moreover, have cognizance
of suits arising in this connection, brought by the parishes and
by the priests. Salaries shall be assigned to each, as indicated
below.
III. The bishop of Paris shall receive fifty thousand livres;
the bishops of the cities having a population of fifty thousand or
more, twenty thousand livres; other bishops, twelve thousand
livres.
V. The salaries of the parish priests shall be as follows: in
Paris, six thousand livres; in cities having a population of fifty
thousand or over, four thousand livres; in those having a
population of less than fifty thousand and more than ten thousand,
three thousand livres; in cities and towns of which the population
is below ten thousand and more than three thousand, twenty-four
hundred livres.
In all other cities, towns, and villages where the parish shall
have a population between three thousand and twenty-five hundred,
two thousand livres; in those between twenty-five hundred and two
thousand, eighteen hundred livres; in those having a population of
less than two thousand, and more than one thousand, the salary
shall be fifteen hundred livres; in those having one thousand
inhabitants and under, twelve hundred livres.
VII. The salaries in money of the ministers of religion
shall be paid every three months, in advance, by the treasurer of
the district.
XII. In view of the salary which is assured to them by the
present constitution, the bishops, parish priests, and curates
shall perform the episcopal and priestly functions gratis.
Title IV
ARTICLE I. The law requiring the residence of ecclesiastics in
the districts under their charge shall be strictly observed. All
vested with an ecclesiastical office or function shall be subject
to this, without distinction or exception.
II. No bishop shall absent himself from his diocese more than
two weeks consecutively during the year, except in case of real
necessity and with the consent of the directory of the department
in which his see is situated.
III. In the same manner, the parish priests and the curates may
not absent themselves from the place of their duties beyond the
term fixed above, except for weighty reasons, and even in such
cases the priests must obtain the permission both of their bishop
and of the directory of their district, and the curates that of
the parish priest.
VI. Bishops, parish priests, and curates may, as active
citizens, be present at the primary and electoral assemblies; they
may be chosen electors, or as deputies to the legislative body, or
as members of the general council of the communes or of the
administrative councils of their districts or departments.