The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between the First French Republic and the Holy See, signed by First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII on 15 July 1801 in Paris.[1] It remained in effect until 1905, except in Alsace–Lorraine, where it remains in force. It sought national reconciliation between the French Revolution and Catholics and solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France, with most of its civil status restored. This resolved the hostility of devout French Catholics against the revolutionary state. It did not restore the vast Church lands and endowments that had been seized during the Revolution and sold off. Catholic clergy returned from exile, or from hiding, and resumed their traditional positions in their traditional churches. Very few parishes continued to employ the priests who had accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of the revolutionary regime. While the Concordat restored much power to the papacy, the balance of church-state relations tilted firmly in Bonaparte's favour. He selected the bishops and supervised church finances.[2][3]
Bonaparte and the Pope both found the Concordat useful. Similar arrangements were made with the Church in territories controlled by France, especially Italy and Germany.[4]
- ^ Knight, Charles (1867). "Pius VII". Biography: Or, Third Division of The English Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. Bradbury, Evans & Company.
- ^ Aston, Nigel (2000). Religion and revolution in France, 1780–1804. Catholic University of America Press. pp. 279–335.
- ^ William, Roberts (1999). "Napoleon, the Concordat of 1801, and Its Consequences". In Coppa, Frank J. (ed.). Controversial Concordats: The Vatican's Relations with Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler. pp. 34–80.
- ^ Aston, Nigel (2002). Christianity and revolutionary Europe, 1750–1830. Cambridge University Press. pp. 261–62.