The Civil Constitution of the Clergy was voted by the Revolutionary Assemblée Constituante on 12 July 1790. It contained various measures to end abuses in the upper clergy and to weaken their authority over parish priests. Clerics were to be paid a stipend (instead of the former complex system based on the tithe). Bishops and parish priests were to be elected by ‘active’ citizens—i.e. the clergy was to be subject to lay control. The Pope was to have no say in episcopal appointments, or indeed in the general running of the Church in France. When the Assembly then decreed that all clergy paid by the State must swear an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution, about half the parish clergy refused (the ‘réfractaires’), leading to a bitter split in the French Church.
[Ralph Gibson]
