This new legal construct incorporated the clergy into secular and made them subject to the national government by re-making them as elected positions.
Louis XVI affirmed the vote of the National Assembly on 24 August, but the new civil code provoked controversy among the clergy.
The National Assembly forced the French clergy into a dilemma by requiring an oath for the new civil code, in effect concurring with a radical reorganization of the Catholic Church as subject to the secular state.
Pope Pius VI introduced a foreign aspect to the controversy by denouncing the Civil Constitution in 1791.
A constitutional bishop's diocese was not named after his cathedra or episcopal seat (as was previous practise) but after the department (themselves mostly named after natural features like rivers or mountain ranges) corresponding to his diocese, following the re-drawing of the diocesan boundaries according to the department boundaries created in 1790.