Concordat of 1801
gigatos | May 24, 2022
Summary
The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement signed between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII in order to make peace between the latter and the Holy See, which had been very tense after Pius VI”s death in captivity in France.
The concordat was unilaterally abrogated by the French government in 1905 when the Law of Separation of Churches and State was passed, prompting the disapproving reaction of Pope Pius X who protested with the encyclical Vehementer Nos. It is currently in effect only in the French territories of Alsace and Moselle.
Napoleon Bonaparte, in line with revolutionary ideas, frowned upon the Catholic Church, from which he had the opportunity, among other things, to take away numerous territories, including Avignon, during the first Italian campaign. Not only that: he imprisoned Pope Pius VI, who died in captivity in Valence.
After the Brumaire coup, although the new government was still composed of old Thermidorians, deportation decrees were revoked, some churches were made available for celebrations, and observance of the Decades remained mandatory only for public officials. The oath of hatred toward the monarchy was abolished, but a pledge of loyalty to the Constitution was introduced for ministers of religion. Some Catholics led by Émery declared themselves in favor in order to ensure the return to worship as soon as possible and not to further abandon the faithful. On the other hand, the most intransigent insisted on the mission system pending the return of the Rex Christianissimus, the legitimate holder of power. This position found fertile ground in the émigrés and in those regions where the combination of religious scruples and loyalty to the crown persisted. Napoleon therefore relieved from this commitment the ministers of the western regions where the problem of chouannerie was not yet fully resolved: this was the first step in the run-up to the armistice of 1801. The division among the Orthodox was aggravated by the lack of bishops on French soil and the absence of seminaries to recruit new priests. In addition, in the departments where the pledge was forbidden, churches were assigned to constitutionalists, who thus gained more and more reliability in the eyes of the government and greater strength after a new council was convened.
Napoleon was well aware that France remained and wanted to remain Catholic despite attempts at dechristianization. He was convinced that pacification in the West was impossible without les bons prêtres and recognized the ease with which order was restored the moment more guarantees were granted to them.It was of paramount importance to endear himself to the orthodox clergy, the only one who really had a hold on the people and who had obstructed conscription and tax collection. The situation posed two alternatives: coercion, a path the Directory had already attempted to take through the laws of separation at the risk of losing the Republic, or compromise with a higher authority capable of gaining acceptance of the fundamental novelties of the revolution and to whom the constitutionalists themselves had increasingly turned for doctrinal and disciplinary directives. The reasons for the Concordat cannot then really be appreciated unless viewed from a European perspective.In fact, appeasement with the Papacy would have been more effective than an alliance between Napoleon himself and the constitutional clergy or Protestant faction to consolidate its own legitimacy and that of the Revolution even in conquered territories, such as Belgium, the Rhineland and northern Italy (where authority was recognized only when consecrated by religion). It could also have aligned all the other Italian states and Catholic Spain with its own cause in an anti-English key.
From the newly elected Pius VII”s point of view, the fate of Catholicity depended on the attitude that France would adopt. In fact, the other Catholic powers were considered unreliable, as they were always ready to take strips of land from the Holy See or part of its prerogatives, in line with the now widespread Josephine thinking. Moreover, the Holy See would never agree to bind its cause to an exclusive alliance so as not to sacrifice apostolic freedom and maintain its universalist vocation. Nevertheless, the better prospect that was apparently being offered by France prompted curial circles to seek an agreement with Napoleon. However, this eventual agreement had to rest on two cornerstones. Freedom of worship, understood as recognition of Catholicism as the state religion or at least the dominant religion that would force the civil power to respect its discipline and not to promote laws contrary to its morals, and secondly, an end to the constitutional schism. In return, the Pope was willing to make concessions that were not, however, contrary to dogma.Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon”s brother, was therefore sent to Rome to negotiate with the Pope.
The first concrete signs of rapprochement occurred in February, when a first draft of the Concordat was sent to the pope; on this same occasion an ancient simulacrum of Our Lady of Loreto, which had been taken by the French during the sacking of the Church of Loreto in 1797, was also returned. After several months of negotiations, the Concordat was signed on July 15, 1801, and ratified by both parties-represented by the Cardinal Secretary of State, Consalvi, and Joseph Bonaparte-on August 14 of the same year. A year later Napoleon, to demonstrate his desire for reconciliation, attended a mass held at Notre-Dame (Te Deum) together with twenty bishops and Cardinal Giovanni Battista Caprara Montecuccoli.
Under the concordat provisions, France recognized Catholicism as the nation”s major religion and restored some civil rights taken away from the Church by the civil constitution of the clergy in 1790. The document was drafted by Secretary of State Ercole Consalvi and stipulated that the Church renounced the property forfeited by the French state as a result of the revolution, while receiving the right to depose bishops, who, however, continued to be elected by the state. There is no mention of the religious orders suppressed during the revolution, which remained, therefore, in an uncovered situation.
The document begins with two statements. In the first, the government of the French Republic recognizes the Catholic, apostolic and Roman religion as that of the great majority of French citizens: thus admitting the failure of the process of dechristianization sustained by the Revolution and the renunciation of the establishment of a national religion in France (the project therefore of the civil constitution of the clergy is implicitly rejected). In addition, in exchange for granting the rights and prerogatives set out in the Concordat, a profession of faith is demanded of Napoleon.In the second declaration, the Pope calls for complete freedom of Catholic worship.
Finally, the text ends with a pledge in which the Pope recognizes the rights and prerogatives enjoyed by the heads of government, provided they profess the Catholic religion, both in the diplomatic sphere and in intervention in the creation of cardinals before the revolution. Also pronounced is the forfeiture of the Bourbon dynasty and the granting of the prerogatives of Rex Christianissimus to the head of government.
In fact, each article contains more or less calculated ambiguities. This is because the situation urgently required finding a way of cohabitation of two divergent doctrinal systems: that of revolutionary politics on the one hand and that of a doctrine considered immutable on the other. At first glance, the negotiation seems to report a triumph of the First Consul”s policy, since many major achievements of the Revolution are retained: no dominant religion (the principle of freedom of cults was unaffected) and the clergy not constituting an order, with independent property, administrative and judicial privileges. However, the Concordat sanctions the regaining of security and freedom of action for the Catholic Church in France, a nation thus rejoining Roman unity. Finally, it represents the sinking of schismatic attempts in the Gallican tradition that had been undertaken of the previous decade, sealing an unprecedented triumph of papal jurisdiction.
The ratification of the Concordat was extremely rapid on the part of the Holy See. Within a short time the encyclical Ecclesia Christi announced it to the entire Catholic world, while the brief Tam multa asked the French bishops to resign voluntarily. Cardinal Caprara was appointed legate a latere in charge of restoring worship on French territory. However, there was no shortage of recriminations both in the spiritual sphere, since the planned concessions risked setting a dangerous precedent, and in the temporal sphere, since the territories of the Legations remained within the Cisalpine Republic. Moreover, following the short Tam fine, 55 bishops resigned while 38 refused to do so, with the possibility of hindering concordat policy. A further stumbling block was the settlement of accounts with ex-constitutionalists: the Holy See demanded that to be appointed to an episcopal see they must explicitly “accept the judgments of the Holy See on the affairs of France.” Napoleon, however, strongly objected to this retraction, which stood in the way of his plan for national pacification, and Caprara was confronted with an ultimatum that could lead to the breakdown of any understanding. Despite Bernier”s support and mediation, even some ex-constituents refused the requested retraction and Pius VII dismayed recused the bull of institution.
A further bitter disappointment befell Pius VII when the so-called Organic Articles were added to the Concordat at the time of its approval by the deliberating assemblies (germinal law year X). These were the fruit of opposition to the Concordat that arose within a part of the clergy, the old-line legists and revolutionary officials. Napoleon and Talleyrand themselves wanted to show that they had not failed in their national-Gallican spirit. In April 1802, the 77 articles were arbitrarily annexed to the text of the Concordat and passed off as having been approved by the Pope himself. In particular, they provided for the necessary government authorization for clergy to receive papal briefs, conciliar decrees, legates and apostolic commissioners, and for them to meet in national or metropolitan councils. All monastic orders remained abolished. The teaching of the 1682 Declaration was imposed in all seminaries. Any attack on the spirit of the Gallican Church would fall under the cases of abuse adjudicable by the Council of State. In addition, the government placed restrictions on public manifestations of worship, for example in cities with a large Protestant population, and intervened in numerous details of church organization.Pius VII denounced the unacceptability of this procedure and demanded “opportune and necessary modifications.”
In order to implement the Concordat, Cults Minister Portalis found himself in dialogue with Legate Caprara invested with broad powers and the less malleable Bernier. The latter was in charge of the reorganization of the dioceses, of which he succeeded in suppressing sixty and reassigning them. Orthodox and constitutional bishops were equally represented, and among the new appointments was that of Fesch in Lyon, an uncle of Napoleon himself.Parishes were also reorganized and reduced in number. A problem arose, however, when it was required to choose a fixed percentage of collaborators from among the constitutionalists, a procedure that was made impossible by the demand for retraction. Caprara then reminded that Pius VI”s papal brief of 1790 had to be accepted by the schismatics before any kind of reconciliation could take place. For this reason the legate was summoned and rebuked harshly by Napoleon, who forced him to make a retraction of his statements, a fact that deeply embittered the Roman Curia. However, while it might have appeared to be a victory for the government, in actuality the Orthodox bishops began to appoint in parishes only curates who gave satisfaction to the requested retraction.At the same time voices of protest were raised by some Orthodox bishops who had refused to resign and by that population of the West that had so strongly opposed the advance of the Revolution. This anti-Concordat opposition organized itself into Petites Églises isolated in the Concordat landscape against which the government proved ruthless. This was because England was preparing to go to war after the breaking of the Treaty of Amiens, also supporting the cause of the chouannerie. A similar reaction was observed in the Belgian dioceses, which had always been hostile to the Gallican genius. Napoleon then demanded an official condemnation from the Pope, which, however, did not come.
New critical issues then arose at the administrative level. By the law of germinal year X, the government had set the limit of expenditures it would agree to take on for worship. The sustenance of that part of the clergy that was excluded from it fell under the responsibility of the municipalities, to which, however, most of them decided not to provide, leaving the priests destitute. In this context, no grievances were observed on the part of Rome with regard to the freedoms granted to Protestants, neither with regard to the granting of an organic statute nor to the equalization of economic treatment between ministers and priests.However, a new clash flared up over the question of civil marriage and the validity of the marriage celebrated by constitutionalists and that of religious men and women who had dissolved their vows in the past decade. This problem was exacerbated by the publication of the Civil Code in March 1804, which maintained marriage-contract and divorce. Not least, the Concordat set a dangerous precedent: other states were ready to ask the Papacy for concessions similar to those obtained by the First Consul.
Instead, to satiate his greed for legitimacy, Napoleon decided to have himself crowned emperor by the Pope himself, who, eager to gain an advantageous position in the resolution of the still unresolved issues, decided to accept the invitation by reopening a new phase of negotiations. The first obstacles arose regarding the oath that Bonaparte would have to take at his coronation: in fact, it was expected to respect the conquests of the revolution against the Church and the freedom of cults. Regarding the Concordat next, the Pope explicitly asked that the debated Organic Articles be excluded. Also reiterated was the demand for the submission of the constitutionalists, now also advocated by Fesch and Bernier, and claimed the possibility of sending papal bulls without the prior authorization of the civil authority.
Despite concessions from the French government, the Pope was stalling: in fact, preparations for the birth of the Third Coalition were underway and Pius VII wanted to avoid appearing biased in the eyes of the other European powers. After new reassurances from Napoleon and Fesch, the Pope finally decided to leave for Paris for “the great interests of religion.” Begun in November 1804, the trip proved to be an incredible success because it showed how deep the devotion and loyalty of the French people ran: everywhere masses of the faithful gathered and celebrated for days in the presence of the Holy Father, as for example happened in Lyon.
Another considerable achievement was the unconditional recantation of the constitutional clergy, pushed by Napoleon himself in this direction because he was eager to please the Pontiff”s demands as much as possible. In this way he brought to an end the internal schism within the Gallican Church. The event also had such a resonance abroad that Scipione Ricci himself recanted his positions in the presence of the Pope on his return to Rome. On the subject of the Concordat and the Civil Code, however, the French government refused to alter what had already been ratified, but agreed that priests could abide by the prescriptions of the canonical code and promised an improvement in the economic treatment of the clergy and the creation of new metropolitan seminaries. Napoleon hoped to gain with these favors greater influence over the ongoing ecclesiastical negotiations in Germany, but he failed to do so. This latter dissent, combined with papal disappointment over the introduction of the Civil Code in Milan and the failure to suppress the Melzi decrees, created an initial crack in relations between the Holy See and the Empire that would later result in the disagreements of the following years.
In the French territories of Alsace and Moselle, which at the time of the repeal of the concordat were part of the German Empire, the concordat of 1801 continued to be applied (at the request of the local population), even after the return to France following World War I. Indeed, Alsatian officials in 1919 accepted annexation to France on the condition, among other things, that this special regime be maintained.
The validity of this peculiarity was confirmed in February 2013 by the Constitutional Council. As a result, the state participates, at least formally, in the appointment of the Bishop of Metz and the Archbishop of Strasbourg.
André Latreille, The Catholic Church and the French Revolution, Paris, Les Editions du Cerf, 1970.
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