Meanwhile, support for the refractory church has been increasingly associated with counter-revolution. Emigrant priests and bishops preached from abroad against the revolution, while the remaining recalcitrant became a focal point for wider resentment against the revolution. The distrust with which many people viewed constitutional priests, especially in parts of regional France, helped create popular support for the counter-revolutionary cause. This association had immediate effects. In the first week of April 1791, the sisters of a congregation of Parisian religious were attacked by masses of women who accused them of teaching children “bad principles” and planning a counter-revolution with recalcitrant priests. Such sentiments found official expression in the debates of the “Legislative Assembly,” which was formed in October 1791 and was determined to impose the policies of the early revolution. In November, he ended the pensions of refractory priests and banned them from using religious buildings. On April 6, 1792, he banned all forms of religious dress in order to abolish this visible memory of the Ancien Régime and force people to see priests as “citizens like everyone else.” Concordat of 1801, an agreement concluded on July 15, 1801 between Napoleon Bonaparte and the papal and clerical representatives in Rome and Paris, defined the status of the Roman Catholic Church in France and put an end to the rupture caused by the reforms and confiscations of the Church during the French Revolution. The Concordat was officially proclaimed on Easter Day 1802. In a final remark on the situation, the pope asked his secretary to write a letter to the British government asking for better treatment of the exiled emperor on St.
Helena. One of the last lines of the note read, “He can no longer be a danger to anyone. We do not want this to become a reason for remorse. Relations between the Church and Napoleon deteriorated. On February 3, 1808, General Miollis occupied Rome with a division. The following month, the puppet kingdom of Italy annexed the papal provinces of Ancona, Macerata, Fermo, and Urbino, and diplomatic relations were severed. Against the will of most members of the Curia, Pius VII went to Paris in 1804 for the coronation of Napoleon. Although the pope and the papacy were promised several luxurious gifts and monetary gifts, the pope initially rejected most of these offers. Napoleon agreed, but produced the Napoleon Tiara, which had as its main jewel large emeralds from the tiara of Pope Pius VI, which Napoleon`s troops had previously plundered. David`s painting The Coronation of Napoleon depicts the pope sitting at the ceremony. In the painting, the emperor crowns his wife; Before this particular moment, Napoleon himself had placed the crown on his head, rejecting the pope`s intention to do the same.
Another concession was that the portrait of Pope Pius VII was commissioned from David and given to the pope. Although the Concordat re-established some ties with the papacy, it was largely in favour of the state; he wielded greater power over the pope than previous French regimes, and the ecclesiastical lands lost during the revolution would not be returned. Napoleon understood the benefits of religion as an important factor in social cohesion. His approach was utilitarian. [9] He was now able to win the favor of French Catholics and at the same time control Rome in the political sense of the term. Napoleon once said to his brother Lucien in April 1801: “Skillful conquerors did not get tangled up with priests. You can both contain and use them. [10] As part of the Concordat, he introduced another body of legislation called Organic Articles. Shortly after his arrival, Pius VII consecrated the church of La Voglina in Piedmont with the intention of making the exiled region his spiritual base. But in the spring of 1812, when Napoleon learned of his intentions, the pope was again kidnapped and taken to Fontainebleau in France.
In February 1821, while in exile on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon`s health began to deteriorate rapidly. He reconciled with the Catholic Church. He died on 5 September. He was born in 1821 after receiving the sacraments of Confession, the Extreme Anointing and the Viaticum in the presence of Father Ange Vignali. .
