Pope Pius VI was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in August 1799.
Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878. His reign of 32 years is the second longest of any pope in history, behind that of Saint Peter. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".
Pope Pius VII was head of the Catholic Church from 14 March 1800 to his death in August 1823. He ruled the Papal States from June 1800 to 17 May 1809 and again from 1814 to his death. Chiaramonti was also a monk of the Order of Saint Benedict in addition to being a well-known theologian and bishop.
The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius VII, signed on 15 July 1801 in Paris. It remained in effect until 1905, except in Alsace–Lorraine, where it remains in force. It sought national reconciliation between revolutionaries 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 Napoleon's favour. He selected the bishops and supervised church finances.
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.
A concordat is a convention between the Holy See and a sovereign state that defines the relationship between the Catholic Church and the state in matters that concern both, i.e. the recognition and privileges of the Catholic Church in a particular country and with secular matters that affect church interests.
The French Catholic Church, or Catholic Church in France is part of the worldwide Catholic Church in communion with the Pope in Rome. Established in the 2nd century in unbroken communion with the bishop of Rome, it was sometimes called the "eldest daughter of the church".
Pietro Gasparri was a Roman Catholic cardinal, diplomat and politician in the Roman Curia and the signatory of the Lateran Pacts. He served also as Cardinal Secretary of State under Popes Benedict XV and Pope Pius XI.
Ercole Consalvi was a deacon and cardinal of the Catholic Church, who served twice as Cardinal Secretary of State for the Papal States and who played a crucial role in the post-Napoleonic reassertion of the legitimist principle of the divine right of kings, of which he was a constant supporter.
The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State was passed by the Chamber of Deputies on 3 July 1905. Enacted during the Third Republic, it established state secularism in France. France was then governed by the Bloc des gauches led by Émile Combes. The law was based on three principles: the neutrality of the state, the freedom of religious exercise, and public powers related to the church. This law is seen as the backbone of the French principle of laïcité (secularism). It is however not applicable in Alsace and Moselle, which were part of Germany when it was enacted.
The aim of a number of separate policies conducted by various governments of France during the French Revolution ranged from the appropriation by the government of the great landed estates and the large amounts of money held by the Catholic Church to the termination of Christian religious practice and of the religion itself. There has been much scholarly debate over whether the movement was popularly motivated or motivated by a small group of revolutionary radicals. These policies, which ended with the Concordat of 1801, formed the basis of the later and less radical laïcité policies.
Giovanni Battista Caprara Montecuccoli was an Italian statesman and cardinal and archbishop of Milan from 1802 to 1810. As a papal diplomat he served in the embassies in Cologne, Lausanne, and Vienna. As Legate of Pius VII in France, he implemented the Concordat of 1801, and negotiated with the Emperor Napoleon over the matter of appointments to the restored hierarchy in France. He crowned Napoleon as King of Italy in Milan in 1805.
Mirari vos, sometimes referred to as Mirari vos arbitramur, was the fourth encyclical letter of Pope Gregory XVI and was issued in August 1832. Addressed to "All Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, and Bishops of the Catholic World", it is general in its audience and scope, whereas his three earlier encyclicals had been addressed to more specific audiences in the Papal States and the Kingdom of Poland.
The Organic Articles was a law administering public worship in France.
The tradition of the Catholic Church claims it began with Jesus Christ and his teachings; the Catholic tradition considers that the Church is a continuation of the early Christian community established by the Disciples of Jesus. The Church considers its bishops to be the successors to Jesus's apostles and the Church's leader, the Bishop of Rome, to be the sole successor to St Peter who ministered in Rome in the first century AD after his appointment by Jesus as head of the Church. By the end of the 2nd century, bishops began congregating in regional synods to resolve doctrinal and administrative issues. Historian Eamon Duffy claims that by the 3rd century, the church at Rome might even function as a court of appeal on doctrinal issues.
Holy See–France relations are very ancient and have existed since the 5th century. They have been durable to the extent that France is sometimes called the eldest daughter of the Church.
The relationship between Napoleon and the Catholic Church was an important aspect of his rule.
The modern history of the papacy is shaped by the two largest dispossessions of papal property in its history, stemming from the French Revolution and its spread to Europe, including Italy.
In the Roman Catholic Church, a papal allocution is a solemn, private form of address or speech employed by the Pope on certain occasions. Historically, papal allocutions were delivered only in a secret consistory of cardinals; popes since Pope Pius IX have made increasing use of allocutions, and modern allocutions may be delivered in private to any group.
Protestantism was generally proscribed in France between 1685 and 1787. During that period Roman Catholicism was the state religion. The French Revolution began a process of dechristianization that lasted from 1792 until the Concordat of 1801, an agreement between the French state and the Papacy. The French general and statesman responsible for the concordat, Napoleon Bonaparte, had a generally favorable attitude towards Protestants, and the concordat did not make Catholicism the state religion again.
