The 115,000 priests on French territory in 1789 belonged to an evolving tradition of priesthood. The challenge of making sense of the Christian tradition can be formidable in any era, but this was especially true for those priests required at the very beginning of 1791 to take an oath of loyalty to the new government—and thereby accept the religious reforms promoted in a new Civil Constitution of the Clergy. More than half did so at the beginning, and those who were subsequently consecrated bishops became the new official hierarchy of France. In Priests of the French Revolution, Joseph Byrnes shows how these priests and bishops who embraced the Revolution creatively followed or destructively rejected traditional versions of priestly ministry. Their writings, public testimony, and recorded private confidences furnish the story of a national Catholic church. This is a history of the religious attitudes and psychological experiences underpinning the behavior of representative bishops and priests. Byrnes plays individual ideologies against group action, and religious teachings against political action, to produce a balanced story of saints and renegades within a Catholic tradition.

"Romaine-la-Prophetesse led a devastating insurgency during the first year of the Haitian Revolution. His advisor was a white French Catholic priest, Abbe Ouviere. This book answers who the priest and the prophetess were, what they achieved, and what their lives tell us about the revolutionary Atlantic world"--

"Hope is necessary in our lives. . . . . We have lost some battles but I believe that our cause is invincible because it is the cause of justice, the cause of love."--Fernando Cardenal. Fernando Cardenal, a Nicaraguan Jesuit priest, oversaw a national literacy campaign and served as Minister of Education in the revolutionary Sandinista government in the 1980s. The Sandinista revolution was unusual for the wide participation of Christians in the struggle. However, the role of priests in the revolutionary government (including Fernando's brother, Ernesto Cardenal, a famous poet), was a source of bitter controversy with the Vatican. When he declined to resign his government post (judging that it would be "a grave sin if I were to abandon my priestly option for the poor"), Cardenal was suspended from the priesthood and expelled from the Society of Jesus. Underlying this dramatic story is the deep sense of vocation, which inspired Cardenal's commitment to the poor, his decision to join the revolutionary struggle, and his work within the revolution to instill values of self-sacrifice, generosity, and love. When he later became disillusioned by the corruption of certain party leaders, these same values prompted his break with the Sandinistas. Moving and inspiring, Faith and Joy--which ends with Cardenal's unprecedented readmission to the Society of Jesus--relates the journey of a priest who consistently followed his faith and conscience to serve the poor and to live out the revolutionary implications of the Gospel. (Publisher).