Napoleon's concordat and Organic Articles (1801): texts and commentary

• Napoleon’s concordat: Introduction and summary
• Napoleon’s concordat (1801): text
• Organic Articles: Introduction and summary
• Organic Articles (1801): text
• Imperial catechism (1806): Extract
• Napoleon’s concordat lives on and the Kaiser adds another

Napoleon's concordat restored many Church privileges which had been lost during the Revolution, and he called it a “convention” to try to keep it from sounding like a betrayal of the Revolution. However, some of the concessions to the Church granted in the concordat were quietly rescinded by a unilateral addition to it, the “Organic Articles”. Pope Pius VII was furious.

	Napoleon's concordat: Introduction and summary
	The French should be given just the right dose of Catholicism: enough to “oblige the faithful to pray for the Republic”, but not so much that Protestants were once more driven to rebel. Napoleon's method way of doing this was twofold: a Concordat, signed by the pope, and his own unilateral Organic Articles.
	Napoleon's concordat (1801): text
	In most of France this concordat lasted for just over a century. During that time, however, Alsace-Moselle became a part of Germany, and when it returned to France, it brought back Napoleon's concordat, though only for this territory, not the rest of the country. There it remains in force today.
	Organic Articles: How Napoleon tamed the concordat
	The Organic Articles remind us of the ways in which French Catholicism had gone wrong, for it reads like a list of attempts to prevent past problems like sectarian strife, clerical abuses and the counterrevolution of the Royal and Catholic Army in the Vendee.
	Organic Articles (1801): text
	This is Napoleon’s unilateral appendix to the Concordat. His method of bringing a concordat under partial legislative control by modifying it retroactively was later imitated in Germany. However, the Vatican now stresses that concordats are international treaties which cannot be overridden by national laws.
	Imperial catechism (1806) : Extract
	Cardinal Caprara, the papal legate, approved the Imperial Catechism for use in all the churches of France. This remarkable excerpt shows how closely Church and state worked together after the signing of the concordat.
	Napoleon’s concordat lives on and the Kaiser adds another
	In Alsace-Moselle beside the German border the state pays the salaries of the clerics and the expenses of their churches. Although this border area was twice conquered by Germany and then returned to France, an excuse was always found to maintain Napoleon’s concordat. Today this concordat appears to be extending its influence once more.