The Function of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
Katelyn Price
“The Priests, as was to be expected, were the particular objects of their hatred, and the greatest
caution and the most secret hiding places could not save them from the grasp of a host of
informers and blood-thirsty monsters, who almost any day had an execution to gratify their
malice and encourage their pursuits.”
Simon Bruté, who would later become a bishop in America, was raised as a devout
Catholic in Rennes during the French Revolution. Throughout his upbringing, he saw his family
struggle to practice their faith and his community torn apart by extremists. While he did see a lot
of violence, his perspective on the situation was one gained from chaos; Bruté did not see the
utility in eliminating faith from the center of French life, and lacked the foresight to recognize
the social and political importance of French secularization: elimination of Catholicism from
government meant eliminating special treatment, like tax exemptions, for the clergy, and
possible mutual gains for the church by making the clergy citizens like everyone else. Supporting
these insights are Charles A. Gliozzo, who argues that the Philosophes had intellectual reasoning
behind dechristianization; and Nigel Aston, who even asserts that clergy were the participatory in
the origin of the movement, while David C. Miller explains the perceived practicality of the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy in the eyes of A.-G. Camus, who was present at the proceedings for
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. 1 Such arguments shine a new light on the changes against
the church during the French revolution, and can look beyond the violence to explain why
Catholicism was such a core issue to the French during the period.
1
Charles A. Gliozzo, “The Philosophes and Religion: Intellectual Origins of the Dechristianization Movement in the
French Revolution,” Church History 40, no. 3 (September 1971): 273-283; Nigel Aston, “Turbulent priests? The
Church and the Revolution,” History Today 39, no. 5 (May 1989): 20-25; David C. Miller, “"A.-G. Camus and the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy,”." Catholic Historical Review 76, no. 3 (July 1990): 481.
Prior to the Revolution, Catholicism was the authority in the French government because
the ruling Capet family was Catholic. Laws were made to serve the Church and tax exemptions
were applied to the volume of wealth associated with the church. Bishops in particular were
extravagantly rich, and accountable to almost no one. While this was by no means the primary
issue that led to the French Revolution, it did become one of many symbols to the French people
that their government did not represent them. While the latter days of the Revolution give an
impression that the attack was on the church as a single entity, originally, many were striving for
equality of the clergy within the Church, and the people’s ability to see the king for who he truly
represented, and not a ruler of divine sanction. In a sense, combating the authority of the
Catholic Church was the revolutionaries taking a defense against conservatives who pushed their
desire for the king to stay the leader on the premise of religious reasons rather than practical
reasons. The revolutionaries had to eliminate royal ties to the church because they wanted a
government decision making based on intelligent choices, based on social and political factors,
not ignorance and superstition.
It is hard to say that anyone disliked ignorance and religion more consistently than the
philosophes, philosophers of the 18th century enlightenment. According to Charles Gliozzo, they
were vocal about the need for dechristianization, asserting that in order to “root out fanaticism,
one must first root out superstition, and the only way to do (that would be to) negate all dogma—
especially to destroy Christianity.” 2 Gliozzo goes on to single out Voltaire, who, “opposed
payments to and residual jurisdiction of the Papacy; he persistently advocated the full submission
of ecclesiastical to civil laws, the abolition of clerical celibacy, secularization of priests salaries
and the closing of monasteries.” 3 These demands were responses to the fiscal drain that was the
2
3
Gliozzo, Intellectual Origins, 274.
Gliozzo, Intellectual Origins, 275.
Church. As far as Voltaire was concerned, the French government bent down to the will of the
Archdiocese, but was unfair to the common citizen, especially since religion, according to
Voltaire, was irrational and provided weak grounds on which to build and maintain a national
government. Charles Gliozzo also touches on the philosophes’ desire to deliver God to the hands
of the believers, paraphrasing M. de Beaumont’s desire for “belief in the immortality of the soul
and in the direct relationship between man and God without the aid of intermediaries.” 4 Cracking
down on the church was partially an attempt to give faith back to people and away from the
government and special interests within the ranks of government ideologues. The philosophes
wished to destroy the bonds between the two and had intelligent reasons for doing so.
More surprising than the philosophes reasoning behind dechristianization, is the support
for the separation of the Church from the State provided by lower clergy in the early Revolution.
As Nigel Aston argues in his article “Turbulent Priests? The Church and the Revolution,” the
clergy had much to gain by getting faith out of politics as well. Initially, there were many priests
who “applauded the arrival if reforming ministers like Turgot and Necker, and wanted to do what
they could to introduce efficiency and rationalism into the administrative structures of the ancien
régime.” 5 Disorder had infringed upon their lives as well, and a change was as attractive for
some priests as everyone else. Lower clergy who lived in areas of mixed faiths also saw the
effects that a Catholic government was having on non-Catholics - particularly its effects on
wealth distribution - and thought, “It was time to end the fiction that Frenchmen belonged to one
Faith.” 6 Finally, Aston addresses the differences between lower and upper priests, which,
“divided straightforwardly along higher/lower clergy lines in 1789.” 7 The lower priests did not
4
Gliozzo, Intellectual Origins, 279.
Aston, Turbulent Priests, 23.
6
Aston, Turbulent Priests, 24.
7
Aston, Turbulent Priests, 24.
5
have a voice and were typically very poor, while the upper priests tended to hold a lot of wealth
and had power within the government. Aston argues that, “against the background of secular
acclaim, it is not surprising that the electoral rules published in January, 1789 allowed curés to
vote and stand as candidates on the same basis of the higher clergy.” 8 In these ways,
dechristianization of the government gave even the priests, at least the lower ones, more
opportunities in the government because they would be able to vote. This was, of course, until
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which was, “a narrow test of loyalty to the Revolution
which undid the patriotic spirit of 1789 for at least half of the ordained members of the Church.” 9
Though the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was a devastating beginning of violence against
priests, did it have a function, too?
David C. Miller argues that the Civil Constitution Clergy, even though it resulted in
violence, had an important role. His analysis of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy comes
through the writings and life of A-G Camus, a political figure during the late revolution who
helped write the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Miller expresses that Camus felt the
Constitution was intended to “end the financial waste and injustices of the Old Regime, and to
break the aristocratic monopoly on promotion by having bishops nominated by electors of the
departments, and parish priests nominated by the electors of the districts.” 10 Essentially, it gave
the authority over the church to the government. It also served to end the cycle where, “kings and
bishops, when grouped alongside the pope, formed a reactionary triad that offended history and
nature. Sovereignty could reside only in the nation and principally among the people.” 11 Camus,
however, cannot be seen as a neutral actor on the behalf of this act. He was incredibly involved
8
Aston, Turbulent Priests, 24.
Aston, Turbulent Priests, 25.
10
Miller, Camus, 6.
11
Miller, Camus, 7.
9
on one side of the issue. Still, like any other source, he does give insight into the logic behind
this movement against the clergy, which was a defensive strike against those who were not for a
revolution—the traitors. Despite his extremism, he did make a good point: reform of the Catholic
Church in France was needed to break from the past and from the rule of a King. In this way, the
Civil Constitution of the Clergy did have a function other than making Catholic’s lives
impossible: it wanted to get away from the authority that was the Church.
In no way are the actions the Constitution seen as a positive here, rather the motivation
for it was, in a few ways, noble. A nation decided that they wanted to no longer be ruled by a
king who was ruled by a church, so they forcefully broke free from it. Unfortunately, they only
separated individuals, but not the tyrannical ties in government. Bruté was not wrong about the
violence and atrocities that he saw, but he failed to recognize that they were in response to the
overbearing nature of his religion. His history is a social history, and it lacks political insight and
fails to make full consideration of the issues at hand. Charles Gliozzo compensates for this
shortcoming by showing the pretext by which the movement came: the Enlightenment. Nigel
Aston demonstrates that priests were keen for reform as well, that it could have benefited almost
everyone. Furthermore, David Miller illustrates the mindset behind creation of the Civil
Constitution of the Clergy; while it may not have been most rational or fair, it did have was built
upon a foundation of truth. Bruté lacked the ability to see why dechristianization was necessary,
but historians allow a window into the only perspective he could have given: his own.