Concordat of 1801: Napoleon's Deal With the Catholic Church

The Concordat of 1801 was the agreement between First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII that restored the Catholic Church in France after a decade of revolutionary conflict. Signed in Paris on 15 July 1801 and published as French law in April 1802, it brought public Catholic worship back to France while placing the Church firmly under the control of the state. With later changes it shaped French church-state relations for more than a century.

Background: the Revolution and the Church

Before 1789 the Catholic Church in France was rich, privileged and closely tied to the monarchy. In 1789 the National Assembly abolished the tithe and nationalised church lands to pay the state’s debts. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy of July 1790 then reorganised the Church on revolutionary lines, with bishops and priests elected by citizens and paid by the state.

When clergy were required to swear an oath to this constitution, the Church split. Roughly half the parish clergy took the oath, and most bishops refused; Pope Pius VI condemned the reform in 1791. Refractory priests were later deported or executed, and during the Terror of 1793-94 a “dechristianisation” campaign closed churches, while revolutionaries promoted new civic cults.

In 1795 the Republic declared church and state separate, and worship slowly revived, but the conflict continued. Religious grievances helped fuel the royalist rising in the Vendée and the Chouan revolts in western France. In 1798 French troops occupied Rome and carried Pius VI away as a prisoner; he was later moved to France and died at Valence in August 1799.

Why Bonaparte wanted an agreement

After the Coup of 18 Brumaire, Bonaparte wanted to end the internal divisions that weakened his regime. He was not personally devout, but he believed religion was essential for social order and that most French people remained Catholic. A settlement with Rome would also deprive the exiled Bourbons of the support of loyal clergy.

The new Pope, Pius VII, elected in Venice in March 1800, was ready to negotiate to save the Church in France. Soon after his victory at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, Bonaparte let the Vatican know through Cardinal Carlo Martiniana of Vercelli that he wished to reach an agreement.

Negotiations

Talks began in Paris in November 1800. The Pope sent Archbishop Giuseppe Spina, assisted by the theologian Carlo Caselli. On the French side, the chief negotiator was Étienne-Alexandre Bernier, a priest who had served the Vendée rebels and then helped pacify them. The French foreign minister Talleyrand, himself a former bishop, was hostile to many papal demands.

The negotiations were long and difficult, and the French produced more than twenty drafts. In June 1801 the papal Secretary of State, Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, came to Paris to settle the remaining issues. After a final round of tense talks led on the French side by Joseph Bonaparte, the agreement was signed late on 15 July 1801. Pius VII ratified it on 15 August 1801.

The terms

The Concordat was a short text of 17 articles. Its main provisions were:

• Catholicism was recognised as “the religion of the great majority” of French citizens, rather than the religion of the state.
• Catholic worship would be free and public, subject to police regulations the government judged necessary.
• A new map of dioceses was drawn, with 60 dioceses in place of the more than 130 of the old regime.
• All existing bishops, whether of the old Church or the revolutionary “constitutional” Church, were to resign. The First Consul would nominate new bishops, and the Pope would give them canonical institution.
• Bishops would swear an oath of loyalty to the government, and would appoint parish priests acceptable to it.
• The Church gave up any claim to its former lands sold during the Revolution, and the state undertook to pay the salaries of bishops and parish priests.

The Organic Articles and publication

Bonaparte delayed publishing the Concordat until he could overcome opposition from anticlerical politicians and generals. When it became law on 8 April 1802, it was accompanied by 77 “Organic Articles” drawn up by the government without papal consent. These required government approval for papal bulls, nuncios and church councils, and imposed the Gallican Declaration of 1682 on seminaries.

Rome protested but could not prevent them. Similar articles organised the Lutheran and Reformed Protestant churches, and in 1808 Napoleon created an official structure for Judaism. On Easter Sunday, 18 April 1802, a solemn Te Deum in Notre-Dame celebrated the restoration of worship.

Key people

• Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821): First Consul, who pursued the agreement for political rather than religious reasons and insisted on state control of the Church.
• Pope Pius VII (1742–1823): a Benedictine monk and former bishop of Imola, who accepted painful concessions to restore Catholic life in France.
• Cardinal Ercole Consalvi (1757–1824): papal Secretary of State and the Vatican’s most skilful diplomat, who secured the final compromise in Paris.
• Étienne-Alexandre Bernier (1762–1806): the French negotiator, rewarded with the bishopric of Orléans.
• Joseph Bonaparte (1768–1844): Napoleon’s elder brother, who led the last round of talks and signed for France.

Consequences

Most bishops complied with the Pope’s call to resign, but a minority of old-regime bishops refused, and some of their followers formed the small schismatic “Petite Église”, which survived in a few places into modern times. The new bishops were a mix of former constitutional and refractory clergy, chosen largely for their loyalty.

Relations between Napoleon and the Pope later collapsed. Pius VII attended the Coronation of Napoleon in 1804, but he refused to join the Continental Blockade against Britain. In 1809 Napoleon annexed the Papal States, and the Pope, who had excommunicated those responsible, was arrested and held at Savona and then Fontainebleau until 1814.

Even so, the Concordat itself survived the fall of Napoleon. The restored Bourbons tried to replace it with a new agreement in 1817, but this was never put into effect, and the 1801 system remained.

Legacy

The Concordat governed French church-state relations until the law of 9 December 1905 separated the churches and the state, ending state salaries for clergy. Because Alsace and part of Lorraine were German territory in 1905, they kept the Concordat system after returning to France in 1918, and it still applies in the departments of Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle today.

The agreement also became a model. In the 19th and 20th centuries the Papacy signed many concordats with states, using the formula of 1801 in which governments influenced the choice of bishops in return for legal recognition of the Church.

Timeline

• 1790, 12 July: The Civil Constitution of the Clergy is adopted.
• 1799, 29 August: Pope Pius VI dies as a prisoner at Valence.
• 1800, 14 March: Pius VII is elected Pope in Venice.
• 1800, November: Negotiations open in Paris.
• 1801, 15 July: The Concordat is signed in Paris.
• 1801, 15 August: Pius VII ratifies the Concordat.
• 1802, 8 April: The Concordat and Organic Articles become French law.
• 1802, 18 April: A Te Deum at Notre-Dame celebrates the restoration of worship.
• 1905, 9 December: The French law of separation ends the Concordat outside Alsace-Moselle.

Why it matters

The Concordat ended the religious civil war that the Revolution had opened and gave Napoleon the support of the Church while keeping it subordinate to the state. It preserved key revolutionary changes, such as the sale of church lands and freedom of worship, and created a church-state model that lasted in France until 1905.