23.1.9: The Concordat of 1801

The Catholic Church in Revolutionary France

During the French Revolution, the National Assembly took Church properties and issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the Church a department of the state and effectively removed it from papal authority. At the time, the nationalized Gallican Church was the official church of France. Gallicanism was the theory that the power of monarchs is independent of the power of popes and that the church of each country should be under the joint control of the pope and the monarch, but the doctrine of the Gallican Church was essentially Catholicism. The Civil Constitution caused hostility among the Vendée resurgents, who resented the harsh conditions imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the provisions of the Civil Constitution and broke into open revolt after the Revolutionary government’s imposition of military conscription. A guerrilla war known as the Revolt in the Vendée was led at the outset by peasants who were chosen in each locale. It cost more than 240,000 lives before it ended in 1796. Subsequent laws abolished the traditional Gregorian calendar and Christian holidays.

Development of the Concordat

The Concordat was drawn up by a commission with three representatives from each party. Napoleon Bonaparte, who was First Consul of the French Republic at the time, appointed Joseph Bonaparte, his brother, Emmanuel Crétet, a counselor of state, and Étienne-Alexandre Bernier, a doctor in theology. Pope Pius VII appointed Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, Cardinal Giuseppe Spina, archbishop of Corinth, and his theological adviser, Father Carlo Francesco Maria Caselli. The French bishops, whether abroad or back to their own countries, had no part in the negotiations.

The Concordat of 1801 was signed in Paris. It sought national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics and solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France, with most of its civil status restored. While the Concordat restored some ties to the papacy, it was largely in favor of the state. It wielded greater power of the state vis-à-vis the Pope than previous French regimes, and church lands lost during the Revolution were not returned. Napoleon understood the utility of religion as an important factor of social cohesion and his approach was utilitarian. He could now win favor with French Catholics while also controlling Rome politically.

Napoleon looked for the recognition by the Church of the disposition of its property and geographical reorganization of bishoprics, while Rome sought the protection of Catholics and the recognition of a special status of the Catholic Church in the French State. The main terms of the Concordat included:

• A declaration that “Catholicism was the religion of the great majority of the French” but not the official state religion, thus maintaining religious freedom for Protestants and other French citizens.
• The Church was to be free to exercise its worship in public in accordance with police regulations that the Government deems necessary for the public peace. The authority to determine if a public religious observance would violate the public peace resided with each mayor, who had the power to prohibit a public ceremony if he considered it a threat to the peace of his commune
• The Papacy had the right to depose bishops, but this made little difference because they were still nominated by the French government. The state paid clerical salaries and the clergy swore an oath of allegiance to the state.
• The Catholic Church gave up all its claims to Church lands that were confiscated after 1790.
• Sunday was reestablished as a “festival.” The rest of the French Republican Calendar was not replaced by the traditional Gregorian Calendar until January 1, 1806.

In the aftermath of signing the Concordat of 1801, the Catholic clergy returned from exile or hiding and resumed their traditional positions in their traditional churches. Very few parishes retained the priests who had accepted the “Civil Constitution of the Clergy.” Napoleon and the pope both found the Concordat useful. Similar arrangements were made with the Church in territories controlled by Napoleon, especially Italy and Germany.

Organic Articles

As part of the Concordat, Napoleon presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles. These  consisted of 77 Articles relating to Catholicism and 44 Articles relating to Protestantism and were published as a unilateral addition to the Concordat in 1802. Napoleon presented the set of laws to the Tribunate and the legislative body at the same time that he had them vote on the Concordat itself. It met with opposition from the Catholic Church with Pope Pius VII claiming that the articles had been promulgated without his knowledge. Presenting the Organic Articles was Napoleon’s method of granting the Tribunate and the legislative body partial control of the Concordat to help the state monitor any politically harmful Catholic or Protestant movements or activities.

Significance of the Concordat

The hostility of devout Catholics against the state was now largely resolved. The Concordat did not restore the vast church lands and endowments that were seized upon during the revolution and sold off. Catholic clergy returned from exile or hiding, and resumed their former positions in their traditional churches. While the Concordat restored much power to the papacy, the balance of church-state relations tilted firmly in Napoleon’s favor. He selected the bishops and supervised church finances. Similar arrangements were made with the Church in territories controlled by Napoleon, especially Italy and Germany. The Concordat was abrogated by the law of 1905 on the separation of Church and state. However, some provisions of the Concordat are still in effect in the Alsace-Lorraine region under the local law of Alsace-Moselle, as the region was controlled by the German Empire at the time of the 1905 law’s passage.

Attributions

• The Concordat of 1801
  • “Civil Constitution of the Clergy.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Constitution_of_the_Clergy. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Napoleon.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Vendée.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vend%C3%A9e. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Organic Articles.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Articles. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Gallican Church.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallican_Church. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “Concordat of 1801.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concordat_of_1801. Wikipedia CC BY-SA 3.0.
  • “1024px-FrenchChurchOathConcordat.jpg.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FrenchChurchOathConcordat.jpg. Wikimedia Commons Public domain.