Pius VII

Pope Pius VII (1740-1823) was Pope from 1800-1823. He is best known for negotiating successfully the Concordat of 1801 with Napoleon wich normalized the status of the Catholic Church in France after its suppression during the French Revolution.

Career

Pius was born Luigi Chiaramonti, at Cesena, Italy to a noble family. At sixteen he became a Benedictine; he served as a professor of tgheology in Parma and Rome. He bacame a bishop at Tivoli and Ivola, and in 1785 was made a cardinal by the family friend Pope Pius VI.

Pope

In 1800 he was elected pope in the conclave of 35 cardinals at Venice, under the sponsorship of the Emperor of Austria. He was a compromise candidate and took the name "Pius VII" at this time.

Napoleon

Working with his talented secretary of state, Ercole Cardinal Consalvi, Pius accepted the initiative of Napoleon Bonaparte, ruler of France, and signed the Concordat of 1801.

The French Government recognized the Catholic religion as the religion of the great majority of Frenchmen. However it was no longer as in former times, the official "religion of the State".

It gave the French government the right to nominate bishops (long a demand of Gallicanism). The bishops were to appoint as parish priests such persons only as were acceptable to the government and who swore an oath of allegiance to the French government. It reorganized the system of bishoprics and parishes throughout France, and provided for seminaries. It did not provide for the return of the vast lands and properties owned by the Church and seized during the French Revolution. Pius called upon French bishops in exile to resign. Thirty-six refused but the resulting schism was of short duration. At the time of the publication of the Concordat (1802) Napoleon published 77 Organic Articles of strong Gallican tendencies which for the most part remained in force along with with the Concordat until 1905.

In 1804 Pius VII, hoping for concessions from Napoleon, went to Paris for the coronation of the new emperor. He was, however, allowed only to anoint Napoleon, who did the crowning himself. When in 1809 Napoleon annexed all the Papal States to the French empire, Pius VII excommunicated him. Napoleon then imprisoned Pius and deprived of all councilors. Later at Fontainebleau he was forced to make concessions which he withdrew as soon as he could. After the fall of Napoleon in 1814, Pius VII and Consalvi were able to obtain the complete restoration of the Papal States at the Congress of Vienna. In 1814 Pius restored the Jesuit Order throughout the world.

Further reading

• Goyau, Georges. "The French Concordat of 1801." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. (1908) online edition
• Margaret M. O'Dwyer. Papacy in the Age of Napoleon and the

Restoration: Pius VII, 1800-23 (1986)

• Weber, Nicholas. "Pope Pius VII." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. (1911). online edition