French State began a series of negotiations for "pacification of law" in respect to both civil and canon law to create a harmonious day-to-day working relationship. These negotiations culminated in 1926 when Aristide Briand negotiated the Briand-Ceretti Agreement with the Holy See whereby the state reclaimed a role in the process of choosing diocesan bishops. Pope Pius XII later supported what he called, "la légitime et saine laïcité". At Vatican II through the encyclical Gaudium et spes the Church recognized a belief in a non-confessional state, that the Church should not be involved in politics and that there should be a fair separation of powers marked by co-operation for the benefit of society. The Catholic Church recognizes the principle of secularism through its 2004 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, based on the principles of Luke 20:25. Pope John Paul II first condemned the secular governments and called for "the public profession of Christianity," but upon the 2005 centennial of the 1905 law he made more conciliatory statements, including: "The non-confessionality of the State, which is a non-involvement of the civil power in the life of the Church and of the different religions, as in the spiritual domain, enables all the parts of society to work together in the service of all and of the national community". Politics The leading figures in the creation of the law were Aristide Briand, Émile Combes, Jean Jaurès and Francis de Pressensé. The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State declared that cathedrals remained the property of the state and smaller churches that of the local municipal government. Those public authorities had to hand over the buildings to religious organizations (associations cultuelles) representing associated formed of laymen, instead of putting them directly back under the supervision of the church hierarchies. These laymen associations created under the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State were independent legal entities having rights and responsibilities in the eyes of the law in all matters appertaining to money and properties formerly owned in France by organized religions: churches and sacred edifices, ecclesiastical property, real and personal; the residences of the bishops and priests; and the seminaries. These laymen associations were also authorized by the law to act as administrators of church property, regulate and collect the alms and the legacies destined for religious worship. The resources furnished