As Europe grew more connected and communications grew easier, the issue of legitimacy became more important. The Pope frequently withdrew support from flagrantly corrupt Bishops or from Bishops who were elected in a flagrantly anti-Papal function. This climaxed in a violent clash about investitures between Emperor and Pope in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which ended in a compromise: the Emperor was allowed to nominate the Bishop in so far as the Bishop was a temporal lord, with feudal and judiciary powers, but the Pope alone could make the nomination effective, by conferring on the Bishop the spiritual title. The Emperor, in turn, tended to select his nominee from a roster proposed by the local priesthood. This arrangement quickly spread to France and elsewhere, and meant that most Bishops until the modern age tended to be either selected or at least approved by the State. Even as late as the rise of the United States, the Pope offered the authorities of the new country a right of veto over candidates to Catholic bishops; which the Founding Fathers, true to their beliefs, refused.
The situation of the Church in the USA shows why the twelfth-century Church-State compromise collapsed. From the beginning, at least some bishops - such as those in Muslim countries - had to live with non-Catholic authorities. As the Church extended to distant countries such as China, gained a foothold in Russia and the Orthodox East, and recovered or rebuilt its presence in the Protestant countries, the idea of depending on the State in any way became increasingly irksome or plainly impossible. At the same time, the remaining Catholic powers tended to a kind of creeping Anglicanism that increasingly sought to nationalize the Church by stealth. IN France this was called Gallicanism, in Germany Febronianism. Even rule by Catholic sovereigns became intolerable.
In a series of violent changes during and after the Napoleonic period, the Church managed to break altogether with any kind of State control. A new generation of Bishops, happy with their independent status and willing to go it alone without State support, arose. This has not been always and everywhere the case, but in the twentieth century any attempt by any State however powerful to control episcopal nominations - France in 1905, Mexico in the 1930s, China from the 1950s - has led to violent conflicts, and even most Communist countries have had to allow the Church to nominate its own officers. The practice at present is for the diocese to present a roster of candidates to the Pope - as they once did to the Emperor - and for him to select a candidate, and it is very rare indeed that the Pope ever goes beyond the local choices.
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Date: 2008-02-23 06:04 pm (UTC)The situation of the Church in the USA shows why the twelfth-century Church-State compromise collapsed. From the beginning, at least some bishops - such as those in Muslim countries - had to live with non-Catholic authorities. As the Church extended to distant countries such as China, gained a foothold in Russia and the Orthodox East, and recovered or rebuilt its presence in the Protestant countries, the idea of depending on the State in any way became increasingly irksome or plainly impossible. At the same time, the remaining Catholic powers tended to a kind of creeping Anglicanism that increasingly sought to nationalize the Church by stealth. IN France this was called Gallicanism, in Germany Febronianism. Even rule by Catholic sovereigns became intolerable.
In a series of violent changes during and after the Napoleonic period, the Church managed to break altogether with any kind of State control. A new generation of Bishops, happy with their independent status and willing to go it alone without State support, arose. This has not been always and everywhere the case, but in the twentieth century any attempt by any State however powerful to control episcopal nominations - France in 1905, Mexico in the 1930s, China from the 1950s - has led to violent conflicts, and even most Communist countries have had to allow the Church to nominate its own officers. The practice at present is for the diocese to present a roster of candidates to the Pope - as they once did to the Emperor - and for him to select a candidate, and it is very rare indeed that the Pope ever goes beyond the local choices.