ORGANIC ARTICLES. - This name designates the 77 provisions that the French law of 18 Germinal, Year X (= 8 April 1802), ratifying the Concordat stipulated on 15 July 1801 between the Holy See and Napoleon, added to the Concordat itself as an integral part thereof. These provisions, almost certainly inspired by Talleyrand and drafted by the celebrated jurist Joseph-Marie de Portalis, were constantly regarded by the Holy See as a violation of the Concordat on the part of the French State, having been issued without agreement with the Holy See itself, and being for the most part contrary to the doctrine and laws of the Church: for this reason the Holy See, publicly or through diplomatic channels, protested against them several times (the first protest was that contained in the allocution delivered by Pius VII in the Consistory of 24 May 1802).
Through the o. a. the French State arrogated to itself an intense power of interference in the internal affairs of the Church, fusing together the claims deriving from the application of the principles of jurisdictionalism and Gallicanism. Among other things, they affirm the right of placet or exequatur and the appeal ab abusu; they forbid the holding of particular councils or diocesan synods without the authorization of the government; they abolish the exemption of religious from the jurisdiction of bishops; they forbid the existence of a large part of ecclesiastical bodies; they recognize in metropolitans powers much broader than those established by the Church; they give various provisions regarding the appointment of bishops, their powers, and their relations with metropolitans, with seminaries and with parish priests; likewise concerning preaching (teachers are required to subscribe in advance to the declaration of the Gallican clergy of 1682, condemned by the Church), the boundaries of dioceses and parishes, and various other matters.
The protests of the Holy See were in vain, because the French government continued nonetheless to apply these provisions, until the law of 9 Dec. 1905, which introduced the separation between Church and State, abrogated, by art. 44, both the Concordat and the o. a.
Indeed, already in art. 3 of the convention stipulated between Pius VII and Louis XVIII on 11 July 1817 the abrogation of the o. a. had been established; but that convention was never ratified, owing to the subsequent political vicissitudes of France.
The same name of o. a. was given to the decree of the vice-president of the Italian (Cisalpine) Republic Francesco Melzi d'Eril, of 26 Jan. 1804, Year III, which contained twelve articles supplementary to the Concordat stipulated with the Holy See in Paris on 26 Sept. 1803. These articles too, of evident Napoleonic aspiration, attributed to the civil authority considerable interference in ecclesiastical matters.
Bibliography2 works
Pio Ciprotti