Gallicanism

Gallicanism was a doctrine asserting the French Catholic Church’s autonomy and traditional privileges against centralized papal authority. Its principles were formally stated in the Four Gallican Articles of 1682.

Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges: A 1438 French ordinance that asserted limits on papal authority and strengthened the French church’s independence. It gave legal form to claims about French ecclesiastical autonomy before Gallicanism’s later formulations.
Papal supremacy: The doctrine that the pope holds supreme authority over the Catholic Church. Gallicanism resisted the unrestricted form of papal authority this doctrine could imply.
Ultramontanism: A movement emphasizing strong papal authority and centralized governance of the Catholic Church. It became the clearest Catholic opponent of Gallican limits on papal power.
Pope Innocent XI: Pope from 1676 to 1689 who disputed Louis XIV’s claims over the French Church. His conflict with Louis XIV immediately preceded the 1682 Gallican declaration.
Catholic Church in France: The Catholic Church’s institutions and communities within France across its history. Gallicanism took shape around the distinctive rights and traditions claimed for this national church.
Concordat of Bologna: A 1516 agreement between Francis I and Pope Leo X that gave the French crown influence over church appointments. It replaced earlier conciliar arrangements with a royal-papal settlement that shaped French church governance.
Conciliarism: The view that a general church council can hold authority superior to the pope. Gallican arguments drew on conciliar limits to papal power, while not simply equating the French Church with a council.
Infallibility: The Catholic doctrine that the pope is preserved from error when defining certain teachings on faith or morals. Its formal definition at Vatican I rejected a central Gallican restriction on papal authority.
Pope Alexander VIII: Pope from 1689 to 1691 who condemned the Four Gallican Articles in 1690. His condemnation showed that the 1682 declaration lacked papal acceptance.
Church and state in France: The changing relationship between religious institutions and political authority in France. Gallican disputes were a major chapter in defining how crown and church shared power.

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