Let them take the "oath, pure and simple," or if they do not they are 'refractory." The fiat goes forth, and the effect of it is immense, for, along with the clergy, the law reaches to laymen.

On the one hand, all the ecclesiastics who refuse the oath are dismissed.

If they continue "to interfere with public functions which they have personally or corporately exercised" they "shall be prosecuted as disturbers of the peace, and condemned as rebels against the law," deprived of all rights as active citizens, and declared incompetent to hold any public office.

This is the penalty already inflicted on the nonjuring bishop who persists in considering himself a bishop, who ordains priests and who issues a pastoral letter.
Such is soon to be the penalty inflicted on the nonjuring cure who presumes to hear confession or officiate at a mass.[2275] On the other hand, all citizens who refuse to take the prescribed oath, all electors, municipal officers, judges and administrative agents, shall lose their right of suffrage, have their functions revoked, and be declared incompetent for all public duties.[2276] The result is that scrupulous Catholics are excluded from every administrative post, from all elections, and especially from ecclesiastical elections; from which it follows that, the stronger one's faith the less one's share in the choice of a priest.[2277]--What an admirable law, that which, under the pretext of doing away with ecclesiastical abuses, places the faithful, lay or clerical, outside the pale of the law! This soon becomes apparent.

One hundred and thirty four archbishops, bishops, and coadjutors refuse to take the oath; there are only four of them who do so, three of whom, MM.