Concordat of 1925 - Content

Content

Under the concordat, the Church enjoyed full protection of the State and prayed for the leaders of Poland during Sunday mass and on May 3. Clerics made a solemn oath of allegiance to the Polish State. If clergy were under accusation, trial documents would be forwarded to ecclesiastical authorities if clergy were accused of crimes. If convicted, they would not serve incarceration in jails but would be handed over to Church authorities for internment in a monastery or convent. The concordat extended to the Latin Rite in five ecclesiastical provinces: Gniezno and Poznań, Warsaw, Wilno, Lwów and Cracow. It applied as well to united Catholics of the Greco-Ruthenian rite in Lwów, and Przemyśl, and to the Armenian Rite in Lwów. For religious celebration in the specific rites, Canon law was required to be observed. Catholic instruction was mandatory in all public schools, except universities. In Article 24, the Church and State recognized each other's property rights seeming in part from the time of partition before 1918. This meant that property rights and real estate titles of the Church were respected. A later agreement was to define the status of expropriated Church properties, and until that time, the State would pay Church dotations for its clergy. The concordat stipulated that no part of Polish territory could be placed under the jurisdiction of a bishop outside of Poland or not of Polish citizenship.

On paper, the concordat seemed to be a victory for the Church. But Polish bishops felt forced to take measures against early violations, in the area of marriage legislation and property rights. Pope Pius XI was supportive of this and of episcopal initiatives to have their own plenary meetings.

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