Choiseul du Plessis Praslin, Gilbert

CHOISEUL DU PLESSIS PRASLIN, GILBERT. - Bishop, b. around 1613 and d. in Paris on 31 Dec. 1689. Doctor of the Sorbonne in 1640, he was elected bishop of Coninges in 1644. In 1671 he was transferred to the diocese of Tournai. A deputy to the assembly of the clergy, he worked to restore peace in the Church of France, divided by the Jansenist question, showing himself even overly indulgent toward the Jansenists; and with Bossuet he was one of the architects of the declaration of the clergy of 1682, the magna charta of Gallicanism. Too sensitive to the rights of the Church of France, he felt little for those of the Church of Rome, whose indefectibility he called into doubt, and of the Roman Pontiff, whose infallibility he denied, perhaps out of expediency. In other respects he made himself, through his writings, well deserving of the Church, combating the adversaries of his time: atheists, deists, libertines, Protestants.

Most important works: Eclaircissement touchant le sacrement de Pénitence (Lille 1679); Mémoires touchant la religion (3 vols., Paris 1681-85); Les psaumes, cantiques et hymnes de l'Eglise, traduit en français (s.n.t.); Lettre pastorale sur le culte de la Vierge, at the head of Baillet's work, Avis salutaires de la Vierge à ses décort indiscrets (Tournay 1711); Rapport sur la déclaration du clergé de France en 1682, in the edition of Dupin's work, Traité de la puissance ecclésiastique et temporelle (Paris 1768).

Vito Zollini