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Modus Vivendi

1910 New Catholic Dictionary

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1910 New Catholic Dictionary
• Vivendi, Modus
• Modus Vivendi
Webster Dictionary
• Modus Vivendi

An agreement between the Holy See and a civilgovernment on spiritual matters in dispute or likely to be in dispute. On February 11, 1929c, Italy in the Lateran Palace entered into both a concordat and a treaty with the Church. By the treaty the conflicting claims to the temporal sovereignty of the papal states were settled. By the concordat a detailed understanding was arrived at touching those religious matters with a temporal relationship, as holding of church property, assisting at Catholic marriages without any state intervention, deciding marriage issues of nullity, passing upon the competency of public school teachers as religious instructors or taking exception to them when a danger to faith or morals, of having the clergy treated in judicial and pre-judicial processes in keeping with their canonical immunity. The Italian concordat, of all epoch-making agreements since the public pact executed by Pope Callistus II and Henry V, 1121, in settlement of the investiture controversy, is closest to a pure diplomatic accord. In previous concordats the Church to get her major rights respected had to cede in part less vital rights, as the free appointment of her own officials. For the sake of peace she yielded the exercise of such rights as would not essentially compromise her divine independence. Thus Leo X, in 1516, let Francis I appoint to French bishoprics and abbeys, subject to papal approval, in return for France's giving up the religious anarchy involved in the Pragmatic Sanction. Pius VII waived still more to Napoleon in order to revive the faith in France, Eldest Daughter of the Church. With Mussolini the Church rather stipulated to exercise certain acts of her jurisdiction only in the ways set forth in the concordat. Convention, another name for concordat, was used in the Napoleonic agreement. Modus vivendi is a mere working arrangement without formal pledges and permanent status. Pope Pius XI has arranged concordats, or modus vivendi, with Serbia, the Letts, Bavaria, Poland, France for Syria, Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Mexico, and Italy.