The Papacy and the French Revolution (Michael Broach)

The Papacy and the French Revolution
Michael C. Broach
Department of History, University of North Florida
December 2002

The Roman Catholic Church, still the dominant faith of France in the eighteenth century, was a significant aspect of that country’s politics throughout its history.  The Church was not only greatly affected and changed by the French Revolution beginning in 1789 as other French institutions were, but it played an important and significant role in the Revolution itself.  One chief area of study that historians address when examining this crisis is the Papacy.  The Roman Pontiff was a key figure in this event that almost destroyed the church in France as well as the institution of the Papacy itself.  In order to show the Pope’s role in the Revolution as well as how the papal relationship and the French church changed, this analysis will examine the major events of the Revolution that affected the French Church and describe how the Papacy played a critical role in the Revolution.  Prior to 1789, the French church was in desperate need of reform, reforms to its operation but also reforms in its relationship with the leader of the worldwide church in Rome.  Before the Revolution, the Pope’s role in French Catholicism was weak and isolated.  However, both the Church and the Papacy gained as a result of this conflict and the changes needed to fix the pre-Revolutionary church were made in the end. 

The Church, as the First Estate of France, exercised many powers and privileges not only over their different churches and clergy but also in the politics of the nation.  The French Church was also organized under Gallicanism, referring to the governing body of the Gallican Assembly of the Clergy and the laws of the Gallican Declaration of 1682.  The Gallican system, as well as the French Church holding power and privilege as the First Estate, created itself isolated from Papal influence as well as keeping limitations on state control.  Gallicanism in France limited Papal control by only allowing the Pope in Rome to govern over spiritual, theological or scriptural aspects of the Church.[1]  In addition, Gallicanism set the French church apart from the state; however, it recognized the King’s right to govern over “temporal” matters and freed the King from any burden of papal supervision.[2]  Furthermore, according to historian John McManners, papal orders “could not be published in France without royal approval” and to separate papal influence even further, “churchmen could not be judged by any authority outside the kingdom.”[3]

Although the church in France isolated and limited the relationship of the Pope with French Catholics, the monarchy and the papacy had a traditional and historical relationship that continued to exist between King Louis XVI and Pope Pius VI, partly because the monarch was anointed and divinely blessed by God.[4]  In addition to the relationship between Pope and King, the King also had a vital role in the French Church.  According to historian Suzanne Desan, “in 1789, Catholicism and the monarchy offered each other mutual support.  As the official religion of France, Catholicism had a virtual monopoly of public religious expression.”[5]  Though from the outside this system may have seemed workable, by 1789 it was failing.  Because of its organization and political affiliation as the First Estate, the clergy of the church were extremely divided between noble bishops and common clergy who worked amongst the ordinary people of the Third Estate.[6]  The clergy of France differed from the aristocratic bishops in the cities to the common priest or curé who served as not only the foundation of the Catholic belief in his rural area, but also provided the community with public services and education.[7]  Because of the large privileges that the church as First Estate held, along with the problems of its anti-Papal views and divisions among the clergy, by 1789, it was recognized that reform was necessary to fix the problems and even abuses of French Catholicism.[8]

The political turmoil of the summer of 1789 and the beginning of the French Revolution was not only aimed at reforming the political system of France, but also at improving the Church.  One of the most hotly debated issues with the calling of the Estates General in 1789 was about the traditional practice of privilege of the First and Second Estates, especially with regard to the power and influence held by the Church.  The already existing divide between upper and lower clergy as well as other problems in the French Church led to the movement within the Church to give up its rights as the First Estate and merge into the Third.  In addition to the French Church’s loss of privilege, significantly to this analysis, France stopped tithe payments to Rome also in 1789.[9]  Though the intention of these acts was to show cooperation and protect from massive state reform, secularism in the National Assembly grew as a result.[10]  In addition to the growing divide in the clergy, Timothy Tackett has also found that there was a split between pro and anti-papal forces in the Church, with the pro-papal forces seeking a French Church aligned with the worldwide Catholic Church and its leadership in Rome and the anti-papal forces wanting an independent French nationalist church.[11] 

With the merging of the First Estate into the Third and the creation of the National Assembly in June 1789, the tide of church control in politics began to diminish by the hand of this growing secularization.  The Church tried to accept these reforms in an attempt to set up French Catholicism as a “buttress of a regenerated France,” according to John McManners.[12]  However, Pope Pius VI was not as satisfied with these changes.  According to historian Lilian Browne Olf:

In his correspondence with church cardinals, Pius stated that with the National Assembly, “religion is attacked and disturbed; the rights of the Apostolic See are usurped; treaties and solemn conventions are violated; and as the first evils sprang from false doctrines [the Enlightenment], disseminated in poisonous books, it is deemed necessary to give a more prompt impulse to contagious opinions.”  “The French nation, seems entirely seduced by this species of vain liberty, and is enslaved by this council of philosophers who insult and attack each other.”[13]

Though he did not agree with the reforms passed by the Assembly, the Pope refrained from official condemnation of these legislative reforms in an attempt to keep peace between France and the Catholic Church.  This peace would not last for long.

On July 12, 1790, the National Assembly enacted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.  One of the most significant actions of this document was not only the secular employment of church clergy, but that canonical investiture, or the appointment of bishops, was taken away from the Papacy.[14]  “The clear aim of the Constitution was to cut off the French church, from all practical purposes, from contact with Rome and to transform it into a self-contained national church.”[15]  According to Eamon Duffy, it was widely assumed by the King and French Catholics that, as with other decrees by the National Assembly, the Pope would allow the Civil Constitution even though he probably did not approve.[16]  However, the Civil Constitution posed serious problems and threats not only to the traditional functioning of the Catholic Church in France, but to the primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  According to John McManners, this is where the French Revolution “went wrong.”[17]  With the enactment of the Civil Constitution, it not only brought the role of the Church and the role of the Papacy to public debate but also caused distress and schism in the French Church.[18]

Though the articles of the Civil Constitution were explicitly contradictory to the teachings of the Church and geared against the Papacy, Pius VI remained silent over the issue for quite some time.  According to Eamon Duffy, Pius “feared to speak out, in case he [could] drive the church of France to re-enact the Anglican schism.”[19]  According to Olf, “this [was] the program which the Holy Father [outlined] for himself in his dealings with the new French disorder – discipline opposing chaos.  Virtue, charity, constancy, fortitude, and above all an immense silent patience must in God’s good time break down the noisy violators of His laws.”[20]  Pius remained quiet to allow time for decision making; however, he did show signs of his disapproval of the Civil Constitution in letters to clergy and one in particular “to the French episcopate.”[21]  According to Duffy, Pius VI’s silent reaction was typical of his character because of his inexperience in crisis leadership and was highly concerned with appearances and appealing to others.[22]  However, the church in France and especially King Louis XVI desperately waited for the Pope’s response, hoping he would give some form of approval and prevent a major political crisis and division.

With no response from Rome by December of 1790, it was then, as a result of political pressure, that Louis XVI issued the mandatory oath requiring that all clergy in France sign allegiance to the new Civil Constitution.  The result was schism.  The clergy of France, as well as Catholics, who comprised the majority of the population, divided on this one single issue.  Those clergy who did not agree to take the oath and wanted to wait for the Pope’s response were considered anti-Revolutionary.  According to Timothy Tackett, one of the major concerns over the taking of the oath was that communities might lose their priests, or that priests who did not sign the oath for reasons of conscience might be replaced.[23]  This event now required the Pope to take action. 

Finally on 13 April 1791, Pope Pius VI’s Encyclical Charitas was promulgated.  This document was the official condemnation of the Civil Constitution by the Papacy.[24]  In the Charitas, Pius VI “declared that the new Constitution of the Clergy is composed of principles derived from heresy” and that the Constitutional church clergy’s sacraments were not only sinful but illegitimate (Articles 11 and 22, respectively).[25]  In addition, in article 18, Pius VI reminded the French that the Pope alone, according to the Council of Trent, has the sole authority of appointing bishops to office.[26]  According to some historians, this response was too weak and too late and as a result, caused a concentration of “patriotic hostility onto the Holy Father.”[27]  What resulted was not just hostility towards the Pope, but the schism of the Catholic Church in France, just as Pius VI had predicted in Charitas.  Those who affirmed the oath to the Civil Constitution became part of the newly formed Constitutional Church and those who rejected were known as non-juring or refractory priests.  Two churches were created, one legal according to the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church and one illegal, which posed serious problems for faithful French Catholics.  The non-Constitutional priests were viewed as counterrevolutionary or anti-patriotic and as a result, many left the country or were forced underground.  However, a theological dilemma arose over the consecration of sacraments.  For example, if a Constitutional priest said Mass, is the Eucharist he consecrates invalid because the Pope condemned the Constitutional church?  As mentioned, Article 22 of the Charitas answers yes and furthermore, condemns the consecration act heretical and sinful and those taking the illegitimate bread and wine are also committing a sinful act.  This issue, like others, caused such a schism that only disaster could result.  However, as a side note, Eamon Duffy attributes the creation of the Constitutional church and its resulting schism more a result of the Pope’s silence than his action.[28]

The result of the Pope’s condemnation was almost immediate schism causing the Pope and those who followed his teachings to become enemies of the Revolution.[29]  Those clergy who did agree to the oath formed the new Constitutional clergy but were considered heretical and schismatic by the worldwide Catholic Church.  This schism was catastrophic for many reasons, for not only did it destroy the order and structure of the French church, but it caused many clergy to flee the country and sparked counterrevolutionary violence and uprisings.  Timothy Tackett gives a detailed account of one such example where women and men in a rural district in 1791, as Catholics, feared that this issue would take away their clergy and thus take away the opportunities of “religion and salvation” from their families and communities which led them to participate in anti-oath protests.[30]  In addition, the political turmoil over the oath and the Constitutional church was heightened when the King received communion from a non-juring priest on Easter Sunday 1791.  Since the Pope and refractory priests were considered anti-Revolutionary, the King’s action showed his alliance against the Revolution, even if that was not his original intention.  According to Olf, the King’s relationship with the Pope helped in his decline.  Olf quotes Pope Pius VI as inquiring, “who can doubt, [that] the King of France was put to death in hatred of the faith, and because he followed Catholic dogmas?”[31]

With the death of Louis XVI and the rise of what has been commonly referred to as “the Terror,” the schism in the church took another turn to eliminate Christianity altogether.  During the Terror, a de-Christianization of France evolved where the Constitutional church and the remains of the Catholic Church lost legitimacy and were almost completely destroyed.  Starting with the official decree in the fall of 1793 that Christianity was “officially abolished in France,” the de-Christianization campaign had begun and was directly linked to the hatred of the ancien regime and royalty that the Church had been affiliated with.  The Revolution aimed itself at replacing the priesthood and replacing “the role that Catholicism had played in public life.”[32]  The policies against Catholicism that took effect during this time “were partly the reflection of [France’s] own hatred of Catholicism which had betrayed the Revolution” though the Pope’s defiance of the Civil Constitution.[33]  In addition to the attack on priests, many clergy decided to get married either because they wished to show their hatred for their vocation or in order to protect themselves from being attacked as priests, which became an “integral part of [the] de-Christianization” process.[34]  With the closings of churches and clerical marriages, as well as the persecution of refractory priests, the de-Christianization also brought about vandalism and destruction of sacred buildings and artifacts of the church, and in some cases, citizens mocked the church by dressing as priests and masquerading in the streets.  Also during this time period, the counter revolutionary violence in the Vendée became directly centered on the issue of Catholicism in France.

The two most significant actions of the de-Christianization campaign and the 1793-94 time period of the Revolution was the development of a Revolutionary religion and the Revolutionary calendar.  As John McManners has stated, the Revolution attempted through de-Christianization to replace Catholicism.[35]  The Revolutionary religion was created to replace the role that Catholicism had played by replacing God with philosophes of the Enlightenment and made baptisms and marriages civil institutions.[36]  In addition, instead of keeping the traditional Roman calendar of twelve months, a new calendar was invented making the first year the first year of the Revolution.[37]  The seven day week was replaced with ten weeks and Sunday, normally the religious holiday or Sabbath, was replaced by the tenth day décadi reserved for Revolutionary or patriotic observances.[38]  During this time, though he offered refuge for refractory priests, the Pope refrained from public comment in order to protect his own political territory in Italy from being invaded.[39]

With the decline of the Committee of Public Safety, the Terror and the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, the period of de-Christianization began to fade.  However, this does not mean that the Church was automatically re-established.  Though in many cases citizens tried to re-establish churches in France, no significant declarations were made by the new Executive Directory on the re-establishment of the Catholic religion because of the fear of the Pope being anti-Revolutionary and their continued hatred of royalty which the Directory feared would be re-established with the Catholic Church.[40]  Furthermore, there was not a large overwhelming push for the re-establishment of religion because there was not much of a system left to re-build.  The de-Christianization not only ended the Church’s political power and support, but it destroyed the foundation of the very organization that it had existed upon.[41]  However, in addition to the de-stabilization that this had caused the Church, the war that continued during this time was turned at Austria, and then Italy which would become a major threat posed for the Church and the Papacy.[42]

The war effort in Austria and then Italy was led by the young General Napoleon Bonaparte.  Bonaparte made many early victories in the war against Italy and moved quickly to take over all of the territory held by the Pope.  As the French army defeated and took control of the Papal States, the Directory and the young General demanded payments of funds and other goods from the Pope.  In an effort to save the Church, Pius VI agreed to many of the terms of defeat and paid money as well as sending various pieces of treasured artwork to the French.[43]  However, Pius refused to remove his papal condemnations of the Revolution and the Civil Constitution.  According to Olf, he was willing to suffer martyrdom before he would “expose the Church to such indignities.”[44]  As French troops continued to move further south and advance on Rome, Pius recalled his troops and allowed the advance to continue in order to save lives and prevent the Papal territory from further destruction.[45]  One of these measures was the Pope’s agreement in the Peace of Tolentino of February 1797 which gave a large portion of the Papal States to France and replaced the different kingdoms and provinces of Italy with French controlled republics.[46]  According to Phillips, “the Directory demanded that he should retract the various briefs by which he had condemned the [Civil Constitution] on pain of the complete extinction of the temporal power if he did not.  The Pope indignantly rejected the proposal and prepared for the worst.”[47]  The take over by the Republicans of France and the creation of a republican Italy threatened the entire livelihood and existence of the Papacy as Eamon Duffy has stated, “republicanism spelt the end of monarchy, and the Pope was a monarch.”[48] 

Rome was finally occupied by the French in February of 1798.  Though the Pope did not freely open the gates to Rome, he did not put up a large fight either.  Pius agreed to many of the demands of the French occupation; however, he continued to refuse to remove his briefs of condemnation.  The city of Rome and the Vatican were defaced by the French troops and many of the possessions of the Church and personal possessions of Pius VI were confiscated, including property, books, art works and anything else associated with the Catholic Church and its monarch.[49]  However, there was no greater loss to Rome than Pope Pius being taken into captivity and exiled from Rome. 

Pope Pius VI was arrested as “Citizen Pope” and taken prisoner in 1798 by the French Republican forces, forced into exile and driven north away from the holy city.[50]  By this time, Pius was in failing health and not suited physically for the journey; however, he drew up as much strength as he could to make public appearances in his route north.[51]  In addition to appearances, Pius continued to issue briefs and letters to the Catholic Church.  As Olf has stated, “the Pontiff of Catholicism, though a prisoner of the State, continued, even in exile, to exercise his papal dignity and authority of his people.”[52]  The significance of these actions was that he kept the Catholic Church alive during this time and gave hope to the faithful.  In addition, Pius VI had the foresight that his time on earth was numbered and that a new leader must be chosen peacefully to succeed him in the chair of Peter.  Therefore, before dying in captivity on August 28, 1799, Pius issued a papal bull from the Carthusian Monastery at Certosa in 1798 on how the next Pope was to be elected in order to prevent schism in the church on this issue.[53]  With his death in captivity, Pius served again to provide strength to the church during these troubled times because, by his death under the occupation of the French, he became a martyr of the church by the hands of the French. 

In July of 1800, the new Pope, Pope Pius VII, formerly the Bishop of Imola, Cardinal Chiaramonti, entered the holy city of Rome, with the permission of Napolean, and regained the chair of St. Peter and the seat of power of the worldwide Church even though Rome was still under French control.  Almost immediately after being installed as Pontiff, the new Pope recognized the need for healing the schism created by the French Revolution.[54]  His counterpart at the helm in Paris, First Counsul Napoleon Bonaparte also recognized the need for peace in the Church.  After communication between Rome and Paris, the drafting of a compromise began to take place.  Several drafts and correspondence were circulated and as a result, the Concordat was agreed upon in 1801.  During the process of drafting this document, Napoleon recognized that Catholicism was the religion of the majority of the French and that a peace of this nature was necessary to heal the wounds of the Revolution and by healing these wounds, Napoleon was “fulfilling the unspoken wishes of the mass of Frenchmen.”[55]  However, Pius VII played a crucial role in this process as well.  According to Olf, Pius VII was able to bring about peace easier than his predecessor because he did not have direct linkage with the ancien regime as Pope Pius VI did.[56]  Not only did he work to bring about peace and to have the Catholic Church re-established in France, the Pope had to compromise often with Napoleon in order to come to agreement with him.[57]  In addition to re-establishing the Catholic Church in France and ending the Constitutional Church, the Concordat gave the Papacy more power in France.  The result of this historic document was a new construction of church in France that was rid of the old abuses and practices of the pre-Revolutionary church.

The result of the French Revolution, then, was the end of a problematic French church riddled with privilege and plagued by the abuses of its clergy and the beginning of a new French Catholic Church.  The Papacy played a vital role in this process.  The influence of the Papacy has two key elements, the first being the leadership, or in the opinion of some historians, non-leadership of Pius VI and the second the formation of peace with the Concordat. 

First, Pope Pius VI was significant in that he represented the anicen regime and monarchy that the French Revolutionaries sought to reform, and later to get rid of.  Pius VI lacked leadership during the initial stages of the National Assembly’s program of secularization as well as at the beginning of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.  However, he did save the principles and teachings of the Church by finally condemning the Civil Constitution and preserving his condemnation even under pressure and persecution.  His condemnation also gave Catholic counter-revolutionaries encouragement to continue to rebel against the new Revolution and the de-Christianization campaign.  Externally, Pius VI’s defiance of the Revolution strengthened his support and the support of the Church by other European nations.  During captivity, Pius VI remained a light of hope for Catholics by continuing his work as Pontiff and by making appearances and sending letters on the faith of the church.  He also saved the church from schism by issuing a bull on how his successor was to be named.

Second, the successor of Pius VI, Pope Pius VII, elected under the provisions of his predecessor’s bull in 1798, formed the Concordat with Napoleon that finally ended the Revolution in the French Church.  Though the Concordat was only “the bare bones of an agreement, riddled with omissions and occasions for dispute, embodying a ruthless but unambiguous and limited oath, and squarely negotiated with ecclesiastical authority, [it] worked.”[58]  The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was an attempt by the state government of France to make the necessary reforms to fix the problems of the Church; however, it was a failed attempt.[59]  The Concordat, however, was the attempt by the Papacy in cooperation with the leader of the state government of France, to re-build the Church while fixing the problems and abuses it had suffered before the Revolution.  This agreement “actually set the scene for the weakening of the Gallicanism and episcopalism which was embedded in the nation’s culture” and as a result, the Papacy gained more influence and decision making in the French Church.[60]  This decade of conflict and destruction allowed the French Church to emerge as no longer isolated from the rest of the Church with an assembly of aristocratic bishops at its head, but as a church that could function within the state with the Pope at its head.  The problems of the French church before 1789 were eradicated as a result of the Revolution, the Papacy was given the control it needed to keep the Catholic Church unified, and the Papal and State agreement of the Concordat served to construct a modern Church in France that would last until the beginning of the twentieth century.

References  - Footnotes are below this section.

Note: These sources were either consulted during the research phase of this project, though may not be directly cited in the work, or are referenced here as relevant to this topic.

Aston, Nigel, Religion and Revolution in France, 1780-1804.  Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2000.  435 pp.

Aston, Nigel, The End of an Elite: The French Bishops and the Coming of the Revolution, 1786-90.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. 

Bell, David A., “Lingui Populi, Lingua Dei: Language, Religion and the Origins of French Revolutionary Nationalism,” American Historical Review 100.5 (Dec. 1995), 1403 – 1437.

Desan, Suzanne, Reclaiming the Sacred: Lay Religion and Popular Politics in Revolutionary France.  Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990.  262 pp.

Desan, Suzanne, “Redefining Revolutionary Liberty: The Rhetoric of Religious Revival during the French Revolution,” Journal of Modern History, 60 (1998): 1-27.

Duffy, Eamon, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes.  New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.  462 pp.

Fenster, Kenneth R., “The Married Clergy of the Gironde,” Consortium on Revolutionary Europe: Selected Papers, (1998): 71 – 79.

Hood, James N., “Protestant-Catholic Relations and the Roots of the First Popular Counter-revolutionary Movement in France,” Journal of Modern History, 43 (1971): 245 – 75.

Jones, Peter M., “Protestantism and Jacobinism in the Averyon, 1789-1815,” in Martyn Cornick and Ceri Crossley, eds., Problems in French History (Palgrave, 2000): 17 – 30.

La Due, William J., The Chair of St. Peter: a history of the Papacy.  Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999.  374 pp.

McManners, John, The French Revolution and the Church.  New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1969.  161 pp.

Necheles, Ruth F., “The Curés in the Estates General of 1789,” Journal of Modern History, 46 (September 1974): 425 – 444.

O’Dwyer, Margaret M., The Papacy in the age of Napoleon and the Restoration: Pius VII, 1800-1823.  Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985.  285 pp.

Olf, Lilian Browne, Their name is Pius: Portraits of five great modern Popes.  Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970.  382 pp.

Phillips, C. S., The Church in France.  New York: Russell and Russell, 1966.  315 pp.

Pichon, Charles, The Vatican and its role in world affairs.  Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1969.

Pius VI, Pope, “Charitas: On the Civil Oath in France.” Papal encyclical promulgated on 13 April 1791.  Primary source document accessed 23 October 2002.  Eternal Word Television Network Website.  http://www.ewtn.com/library/encyc/p6charit.htm

Tackett, Timothy, and Claude Langolois, “Ecclesiastical Structures and Clerical Geography on the Eve of the French Revolution,” French Historical Studies, 11:3 (Spring 1980), 352 – 370.

Tackett, Timothy, Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in 18th Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.  425 pp.

Tackett, Timothy, “The West in France in 1789: The Religious Factor in the Origins of the Counterrevolution,” Journal of Modern History, 54.4 (December 1982): 715 – 745.

Tackett, Timothy, “Women and Men in Counterrevolution: the Sommieres Riot of 1791,” Journal of Modern History, 59:4 (December 1987): 680 – 704.

Van Kley, Dale, “Church, State and the Ideological Origins of the French Revolution: the Debate over the General Assembly of the Gallican Clergy in 1765,” Journal of Modern History, 51:4 (December 1979): 629 – 666.

Van Kley, Dale, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560-1791.  New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996.  390 pp.

Vovelle, Michel, The Revolution Against the Church: from Reason to the Supreme Being.  Translated by Alan Jose.  First publication in France 1988.  Oxford: Polity Press, 1992. 

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