The Gateway Chronicle 2020

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Clergy, which redrew regional clerical
boundaries (the dioceses) to match those
of the state. The Assembly eventually pronounced
that all members of the Clergy
must have sworn allegiance to the new
Constitution or risk losing their job. This
was condemned by Pope Pius VI, leading
to a two-way split in the
French Clergy. The socalled
refractory priests
were those who refused
to take the oath and
sided with the Pope,
whilst over half of parish
clergy did swear allegiance
to the new constitution. The refractory
Church became a symbol for
counterrevolution in France, with exiled
priests often preaching against the Constitutional
Church from overseas. The newfound
Legislative Assembly, which
sought to implement the aims of the early
revolution, halted pensions for members
of the refractory Church whilst prohibiting
them from using religious buildings.
“The citizens of Paris
massacred 1200 inmates,
including 200 priests”
Despite growing state control
over the Church, the Legislative
Assembly also made reforms
which were in line with
the principles of laïcité. In
April 1792, they banned all
forms of religious dress, which
has echoes in modern French
society with the recent and
controversial ban on Islamic
veils. The purpose of this was
to abolish the hierarchy that
was present in the ancien régime,
where people were
viewed not as citizens, but as
members of their ‘Estate’ – the
First Estate being the Clergy,
the Second being the aristocracy
and the Third being everyone
else. This would achieve equality in
French society – one of the three key principles
of the revolution alongside liberty
and fraternity.
Suspicion with the refractory Church intensified
when revolutionary France made
bad progress in the early stages of their
war against Austria. The citizens of Paris
were concerned that the counterrevolutionaries
would break out of jail and join
the enemy, and subsequently massacred
1200 inmates, including
200 priests, in what became
known as the September
Massacres. This
was succeeded by the
‘Reign of Terror’, in
which the new Republican
government (the
Convention) introduced laws in 1793 and
1794 to crack down on so-called ‘enemies
of the people’, which led to the detention
of thousands of members of the Clergy. A
small number of these were executed with
the Guillotine in order to set the example
that refractory activity would not be tolerated.
Ultimately, religious practice associated
with the refractory Church was
driven underground. Even the Constitu-
The September Massacres, 1792
tional Church began to be
viewed with suspicion by the Convention.
It saw the values of Catholicism in any
form as incompatible with those of the
Revolution. Thus began the movement of
‘dechristianisation’.