Īfter a change of heart, Napoleon then re-established the Catholic Church in France with the signing of the Concordat of 1801, and banned the Cult of the Supreme Being. French troops imprisoned the Pope in 1797, and he died after six weeks of captivity. When Pope Pius VI took sides against the revolution in the First Coalition (1792–1797), Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy (1796). Eventually, Maximilien Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety denounced the dechristianization campaign and tried to establish their own religion, without the superstitions of Catholicism. Local people often resisted dechristianization and forced members of the clergy who had resigned to conduct Mass again. When anti-clericalism became a clear goal of French revolutionaries, counter-revolutionaries seeking to restore tradition and the Ancien Régime took up arms, particularly in the War in the Vendée (1793 to 1796). In April and May 1794, the government mandated the observance of a festival of the Cult of the Supreme Being. New forms of moral religion emerged, including the deistic Cult of the Supreme Being and France's first established state sponsored atheistic Cult of Reason, with all churches not devoted to these being closed. As part of the campaign to dechristianize France, in October 1793 the Christian calendar was replaced with one reckoning from the date of the Revolution, and Festivals of Liberty, Reason and the Supreme Being were scheduled. There has been much scholarly debate over whether the movement was popularly motivated. Many churches were converted into "temples of reason", in which atheistical services were held. The new revolutionary authorities suppressed the church abolished the Catholic monarchy nationalized church property exiled 30,000 priests and killed hundreds more. During a two-year period known as the Reign of Terror, the episodes of anti-clericalism grew more violent than Europe would see until the rise of state atheism in communist Eastern Europe. The anti-clericalism during the French Revolution initially began with attacks on church corruption and the wealth of the higher clergy, an action with which even many Christians could identify, since the Roman Catholic church held a dominant role in pre-revolutionary France. Nonjuring priests were exiled or imprisoned and women on their way to Mass were beaten in the streets. Persecution of the clergy and of the faithful was the first trigger of the rebellion the second being conscription. ![]() All but seven of the 160 bishops refused the oath, as did about half of the parish priests. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was passed on July 12, 1790, requiring all clerics to swear allegiance to the French government and, by extension, to the increasingly anti-clerical National Constituent Assembly. ![]() "Shall he be allowed to rule America?" Revolution Europe ĭuring the Protestant Reformation, anti-clericalism resulted from opposition to the political and economic privileges of the clergy. Many clerics were killed, and French revolutionary governments tried to put priests under the control of the state by making them employees.Īnti-clericalism appeared in Catholic Europe throughout the 19th century, in various forms, and later in Canada, Cuba, and Latin America.Īccording to the Pew Research Center several post-communist states are current practitioners of political anti-clericalism, including Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, China and North Korea. Anti-clericalism became extremely violent during the French Revolution, because revolutionaries claimed the church played a pivotal role in the systems of oppression which led to it. Some have opposed clergy on the basis of moral corruption, institutional issues and/or disagreements in religious interpretation, such as during the Protestant Reformation. ![]() ![]() Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to separate the church from public and political life. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Female genital mutilation laws by countryĪnti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters.
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