Controversial Concordats offers an engaging survey of the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church with three dictatorial figures in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler.

A groundbreaking account of Napoleon Bonaparte, Pope Pius VII, and the kidnapping that would forever divide church and state In the wake of the French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, and Pope Pius VII shared a common goal: to reconcile the church with the state. But while they were able to work together initially, formalizing an agreement in 1801, relations between them rapidly deteriorated. In 1809, Napoleon ordered the Pope’s arrest. Ambrogio Caiani provides a pioneering account of the tempestuous relationship between the emperor and his most unyielding opponent. Drawing on original findings in the Vatican and other European archives, Caiani uncovers the nature of Catholic resistance against Napoleon’s empire; charts Napoleon’s approach to Papal power; and reveals how the Emperor attempted to subjugate the church to his vision of modernity. Gripping and vivid, this book shows the struggle for supremacy between two great individuals—and sheds new light on the conflict that would shape relations between the Catholic church and the modern state for centuries to come.

Religious liberty is usually examined within a larger discussion of church-state relations, but Thomas Kselman looks at several individuals in Restoration France whose high-profile conversions fascinated their contemporaries. Exploring their reasons and the repercussions they faced, Kselman demonstrates how this expanded sense of liberty informs our secular age.

In 1790, the French revolutionary government reformed the Catholic Church and demanded that clerics swear an oath of allegiance to the nation and its vision for French Catholicism. Although half of France's parish clergy refused to accept the state-sponsored reforms, others became embroiled in this decade-long ecclesiastical experiment. This included Jean-Baptiste Volfius, a patriot, priest, and professor who embraced the changes in France and believed in the revolution's potential to create a purer church. Patriot and Priest presents a social and intellectual history of the French constitutional church in the Côte-d'Or and the career of Volfius, who became its bishop in 1791, as he struggled to create and run the church. Annette Chapman-Adisho addresses the daily experience of the constitutional clergy over the course of ten years, exploring the interactions between priests and local and national authorities, the response of the laity to the divisions in the French Catholic Church, the evolution of these issues over time, and the eventual reconciliation of the clergy following the Napoleonic Concordat with Pope Pius VII in 1801. Using a rich collection of archival sources, this book demonstrates that although the constitutional church was ultimately a failed project, its legacy had a lasting impact on the catholic Church in France. Tracing the social, political, and theological history of this reform effort, Patriot and Priest offers new insights into the French Revolution and its impact on French Catholicism.

While the French Revolution has been much discussed and studied, its impact on religious life in France is rather neglected. Yet, during this brief period, religion underwent great changes that affected everyone: clergy and laypeople, men and women, Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. The 'Reigns of Terror' of the Revolution drove the Church underground, permanently altering the relationship between Church and State. In this book, Nigel Aston offers a readable guide to these tumultuous events. While the structures and beliefs of the Catholic Church are central, it does not neglect minority groups like Protestants and Jews. Among other features, the book discusses the Constitutional Church, the end of state support for Catholicism, the 'Dechristianization' campaign and the Concordat of 1801-2. Key themes discussed include the capacity of all the Churches for survival and adaptation, the role of religion in determining political allegiances during the Revolution, and the turbulence of Church-State relations. In this masterly study, based on the latest evidence, Aston sheds new light on a dynamic period in European history and its impact on the next 200 years of religious life in France.

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.