Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Legislation concerning restructuring of the Catholic Church, passed July 12, 1790, by the constituent assembly soon after the french revolution of 1789. The church was one of the institutions of the ancien regime deemed by the revolutionaries to be most in need of reform. The nature of the change was shaped by the ending of the tithe in August 1789 and by the nationalization of church properties in the following November. Henceforth, the church would be deprived of any independent revenues, and be funded by the state. Accordingly, the revolutionaries wished to create a leaner and more cost-effective organization than had hitherto existed. An Ecclesiastical Committee was established to produce proposals. When a first, moderate, draft was blocked by the two bishops on the Committee, the increasingly frustrated Assembly packed the body with more radical deputies in February 1790, with the result that the final draft went much further than originally anticipated. The law passed in July abolished all ecclesiastical offices except those involving the cure of souls, dramatically reduced the number of bishops from 136 to 83 (one per département) , and rationalized parish boundaries. Most controversially, it extended to the church the principle of popular sovereignty, which underpinned the revolutionaries' claim to authority. The clergy would now be subject to election by the same ... log in or subscribe to read full text