Jesuit clause
The Jesuit clause (Norwegian: Jesuittparagrafen) was a provision in the Constitution of Norway, paragraph 2, in force from 1814 to 1956, that denied Jesuits entry into the country. Until 1897, this provision was combined with a ban on monastic orders, and until 1851 a ban on Jews, the so-called Jew clause.
The second paragraph of the Constitution originally reads:
Den evangelisk-lutherske Religion forbliver Statens offentlige Religion. De Indvaanere, der bekjende sig til den, ere forpligtede til at opdrage sine Børn i samme. Jesuitter og Munkeordener maae ikke taales. Jøder ere fremdeles udelukkede fra Adgang til Riget. |
The Evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. The inhabitants who profess it are obliged to educate their children in the same. Jesuits and monastic orders are not to be tolerated. Jews are still excluded from admission to the kingdom. |
Historian Bernt T. Oftestad has often interpreted the ban as an expression of Norwegian anti-Catholicism. Catholicism was banned in Norway until 1845, when the Dissenter Act was passed and Catholic worship was allowed in Norway, although monks continued to be banned from entering the country. As early as 1624, Norway had prohibited Catholic priests from staying in the country, under threat of the death penalty.
Restrictions on Catholic worship were gradually reduced from 1845, but the ban on Jesuits was not lifted until Norway ratified the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights in 1956. In both 1897 and 1925, proposals to lift the ban on Jesuits were discussed and voted on, but failed to gain a supermajority in 1897, and only gained the support of a minority in 1925. Thus, this provision became the last important express legal restriction on religious presence and practice in Norway.