thumb|upright=1.25|A commemorative plate from 1790 shows a [[curé swearing to the Constitution.]]
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy () was a law passed on 12 July 1790 during the French Revolution, that sought the complete control over the Catholic Church in France by the French government. As a result, a schism was created, resulting in an illegal and underground French Catholic Church loyal to the Papacy, and a "constitutional church" that was subservient to the State. The schism was not fully resolved until 1801. King Louis XVI ultimately granted Royal Assent to the measure after originally opposing it, but later expressed regret for having done so.
Earlier legislation had already arranged the confiscation of the Catholic Church's land holdings and banned monastic vows. This new law completed the destruction of the monastic orders, outlawing "all regular and secular chapters for either sex, abbacies and priorships, both regular and in commendam, for either sex". It also sought to settle the chaos caused by the earlier confiscation of Church lands and the abolition of tithes. Additionally, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy regulated the current dioceses so that they could become more uniform and aligned with the administrative districts that had recently been created. It emphasised that officials of the Church could not give their loyalty to anyone outside the First French Republic, specifically meaning the Papacy.
Document outline
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy has four titles with different articles.
- The document begins with an introduction on why the document was written.
- Title I focuses on the dioceses and how they were to be administered.
- Title II focuses on the administration of the dioceses and how elections were to take place.
- Title III focuses on payment because the Clergy was a salaried employee of the State.
- Title IV focuses on the living requirements for bishops, parish priests, and the curates.
Status of the Church in France before the Civil Constitution
Even before the Revolution and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the Catholic Church in France (the Gallican Church) had a status that tended to subordinate the Church to the State. Under the Declaration of the Clergy of France (1682) privileges of the French monarch included the right to assemble church councils in their dominions and to make laws and regulations touching ecclesiastical matters of the Church or to have recourse to the "appeal as from an abuse" ("appel comme d'abus") against acts of the ecclesiastical power.
thumb|In this caricature, after the decree of 16 February 1790, monks and nuns enjoy their new freedom.
Even prior to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy:
- On 11 August 1789 tithes were abolished.
- On 2 November 1789, Catholic Church property that was held for purposes of church revenue was nationalized, and was used as the backing for the assignats.
- On 13 February 1790, monastic vows were forbidden and all ecclesiastical orders and congregations were dissolved, excepting those devoted to teaching children and nursing the sick.
- On 19 April 1790, administration of all remaining church property was transferred to the State.
Motivation of the Civil Constitution
The following interlinked factors appear to have been the causes of agitation for the confiscation of church lands and for the adoption of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy:
- The French government in 1790 was nearly bankrupt; this fiscal crisis had been the original reason for the king's calling the Estates General in 1789.
- The Church owned about six percent of the land in France. In addition the Church collected tithes.
- The Church used the six percent of the land they owned for a multitude of purposes which included churches, monasteries, convents, schools, hospitals, and other establishments which served the people of France.
- Owing, in part, to abuses of this system (especially for patronage), there was enormous resentment of the Church, taking the various forms of atheism, anticlericalism, and anti-Catholicism.
- Many of the revolutionaries viewed the Catholic Church as a retrograde force.
- At the same time, there was enough support for a basically Catholic form of Christianity that some means had to be found to fund the Church in France.
Debate over the Civil Constitution
On 6 February 1790, one week before banning monastic vows, the National Constituent Assembly asked its ecclesiastical committee to prepare the reorganization of the clergy. No doubt, those who hoped to reach a solution amenable to the papacy were discouraged by the consistorial address of March 22 in which Pius VI spoke out against measures already passed by the Assembly; also, the election of the Protestant Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne to the presidency of the Assembly brought about "commotions" at Toulouse and Nîmes, suggesting that at least some Catholics would accept nothing less than a return to the ancien régime practice under which only Catholics could hold office.
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy came before the Assembly on 29 May 1790. François de Bonal, Bishop of Clermont, and some members of the Right requested that the project should be submitted to a national council or to the Pope, but did not carry the day. Joining them in their opposition to the legislation was Abbé Sieyès, one of the chief political theorists of the French Revolution and author of the 1789 pamphlet "What Is the Third Estate?"
- Bishops (known as constitutional bishops) and priests were elected locally; electors had to sign a loyalty oath to the constitution. There was no requirement that the electors be Catholics, creating the ironic situation that Protestants and even Jews could help elect the Catholic priests and bishops. Their proportion in the French population was however very small.
- Authority of the Pope over the appointment of clergy was reduced to the right to be informed of election results.
The tone of the Civil Constitution can be gleaned from Title II, Article XXI:
:Before the ceremony of consecration begins, the bishop elect shall take a solemn oath, in the presence of the municipal officers, of the people, and of the clergy, to guard with care the faithful of his diocese who are confided to him, to be loyal to the nation, the law, and the king, and to support with all his power the constitution decreed by the National Assembly and accepted by the king. The oath was basically an oath of fidelity and it required every priest in France to publicly declare whether or not they believed the French state or the Pope had supreme authority in ecclesiastical matters.
In March 1791 Pope Pius VI announced that the oath was against the beliefs of the Church.
While there was a higher rate of rejection in urban areas, most of these refractory priests (like most of the population) lived in the countryside, and the Civil Constitution generated considerable resentment among religious peasants. Meanwhile, the Pope repudiated the "jurors" who had signed the oath, especially bishops who had ordained new, elected clergy, and above all Bishop Louis-Alexandre Expilly de la Poipe. In May 1791, France and the Vatican severed diplomatic relations. On June 9, the Assembly forbade the publication of papal decrees without its prior assent.
The Constituent Assembly vacillated on the appropriate measures against non-juring clergy. On 5 February 1791, non-juring priests were banned from preaching in public On 7 May 1791, the Assembly relaxed the law, providing that the non-juring priests, referred to as prêtres habitués ("habitual priests") could continue to perform ceremonies as long as they did not agitate against the Constitution. The Assembly was forced to moderate because the "Constitutional Clergy" (those who had taken the oath) were rejected by many of their parishioners; lifting some of the restrictions on non-jurors was seen as necessary to arrest the growing schism in the French church.
Repeal of the Civil Constitution
After the Thermidorian Reaction, the Convention repealed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy; however, the schism between the civilly constituted French Church and the Papacy was only resolved when the Concordat of 1801 was agreed on. The Concordat was reached on July 15, 1801, and it was made widely known the following Easter. The negotiators were Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, and representatives of the Papacy and, such as it remained, the nonjuring clergy.