History of the Catholic Church in France

Under Charles the Fat (880-88) it looked for a moment as though Charlemagne's empire was about to come to life again; but the illusion was temporary, and in its stead were quickly formed seven kingdoms: France, Navarre, Provence, Burgundy beyond the Jura, Lorraine, Germany, and Italy.

It has been recently proven by the literary efforts of M. Bédier that the origin and growth of the "Chansons de geste", i.e., of early epic literature, are closely bound up with the famous pilgrim shrines, whither the piety of the people resorted.

And military courage and physical heroism were schooled and blessed by the Church, which in the early part of the 11th century transformed chivalry from a lay institution of German origin into a religious one by placing among its liturgical rites the ceremony of knighthood, in which the candidate promised to defend truth, justice, and the oppressed.

Louis VI, seconded by Suger and counting on the support of the towns – the "communes" they were called when they had obliged the feudal lords to grant them charters of freedom – fulfilled to the letter the rôle of prince as it was conceived by the theology of the Middle Ages.

"Kings have long arms," wrote Suger, "and it is their duty to repress with all their might, and by right of their office, the daring of those who rend the State by endless war, who rejoice in pillage, and who destroy homesteads and churches."

The divorce of Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine (1152) marred the ascendancy of French influence by paving the way for the growth of Anglo-Norman pretensions on the soil of France from the Channel to the Pyrenees.

French held sway in England until the middle of the 14th century; it was fluently spoken at the Court of Constantinople at the time of the Fourth Crusade; and in Greece in the dukedoms, principalities, and baronies founded there by the House of Burgundy and Champagne.

The revolutionary attempt by Etienne Marcel (1358) and the revolt which gave rise to the Ordonnace Cabochienne (1418) were the earliest signs of popular impatience at the absolutism of the French kings; but internal dissensions hindered an effective patriotic defence of the country.

The ideal of a united Christendom continued to haunt the soul of France in spite of the predominating influence gradually assumed in French politics by purely national aspirations.

Furthermore, European public opinion always looked upon St. Joan of Arc, who saved the French monarchy, as the heroine of Christendom, and believed that the Maid of Orléans meant to lead the king of France on another crusade when she had secured him in the peaceful possession of his own country.

The propositions upheld by Gerson, and forced by him, as representing the University of Paris, on the Council of Constance, would have set up in the Church an aristocratic regime analogous to what the feudal lords, profiting by the weakness of Charles VI, had dreamed of establishing in the State.

A royal proclamation in 1418, issued after the election of Martin V, maintained in opposition to the pope "all the privileges and franchises of the kingdom", put an end to the custom of annates, limited the rights of the Roman court in collecting benefices, and forbade the sending to Rome of articles of gold or silver.

They had, however, a threefold result in the worlds of politics, religion, and art: Louis XII, and the emperor Maximilian, supported by the opponents of Pope Julius II, convened in Pisa a council that threatened the rights of the Holy See.

Six years before Luther's time, the archbishop Lefebvre of Etaples (Faber Stapulensis), a protégé of Louis XII and of Francis I, had preached the necessity of reading the scriptures and of "bringing back religion to its primitive purity".

Eminent ecclesiastics like du Bellay, Archbishop of Paris, and Sadolet, Bishop of Carpentras, deplored these executions and the Valdois massacre ordered by d'Oppède, President of the Parliament of Aix, in 1545.

Laymen, on the other hand, who ill understood the Christian gentleness of these prelates, reproached them with being slow and remiss in putting down heresy; and when, under Henry II, Calvinism crept in from Geneva, a policy of persecution was inaugurated.

In 1561, Catherine de' Medici arranged for the Poissy discussion to try to bring about an understanding between the two creeds, but during the Wars of religion she ever maintained an equivocal attitude between both parties, favouring now the one and now the other, until the time came when, fearing that Charles IX would shake himself free of her influence, she took a large share of responsibility in the odious massacre of St. Bartholomew.

Under the banners of the Reformation party or those of the League organized by the House of Guise to defend Catholicism, political opinions ranged themselves, and during these thirty years of civil disorder monarchical centralization was often in trouble of overthrow.

Feudalism had been broken; the people were eager for liberty; the Catholics, disheartened by the corruption of the Valois court, contemplated elevating to the throne, in succession to Henry II who was childless, a member of the powerful House of Guise.

Under favour of the political causes of the Edict Protestants rapidly became an imperium in imperio, and in 1627, at La Rochelle, they formed an alliance with England to defend, against the government of Louis XIII (1610–43), the privileges of which Cardinal Richelieu, the king's minister, wished to deprive them.

At the suggestion of Père Coton, confessor to Henry IV, the Jesuits followed in the wake of the colonists; they made Quebec the capital of all that country, and gave it a Frenchman, Mgr.

Lastly, from the beginning of this same 17th century, under the protection of Gontaut-Biron, Marquis de Salignac, Ambassador of France, dates the establishment of the Jesuits at Smyrna, in the Archipelago, in Syria, and at Cairo.

"Religiously speaking, during the 18th century the alliance of parliamentary Gallicanism and Jansenism weakened the idea of religion in an atmosphere already threatened by philosophers, and although the monarchy continued to keep the style and title of "Most Christian", unbelief and libertinage were harboured, and at times defended, at the court of Louis XV (1715–74), in the salons, and among the aristocracy.

The acquisition of Lorraine (1766), and the purchase of Corsica from the Genoese (1768), were poor compensations for these losses; and when, under Louis XVI, the French navy once more raised its head, it helped in the revolt of the English colonies in America, and thus seconded the emancipation of the United States (1778-83)."

On 19 November 1791, it decreed that those priests who had not accepted the "Civil Constitution" would be required within a week to swear allegiance to the nation, to the law, and to the king, under pain of having their allowances stopped and of being held as suspects.

As early as 13 November 1792, Cambon, in the name of the Financial Committee, announced to the Convention that he would speedily submit a scheme of general reform including a suppression of the appropriation for religious worship, which, he asserted, cost the republic "100,000,000 livres annually".

According to the locality in which they happened to be, the propagandists either encouraged or hindered this violence against religion; but even in the bitterest days of the terror, there was never a moment when Catholic worship was suppressed throughout France.

On the one hand, the fact of the existence of an international Jewish community to which are attached the Jews of all nations and that these are not ordinary foreigners welcomed in a country but people to assimilate, may require a State to take precautionary measures on behalf of the common good.

Despite this decline, Catholicism is still present in French society through family associations and various commissions, committees, or parliamentary Catholics and maintains a role in political, social and ethical debates.

On the eve of the release of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, the 7 July 2007 document by which Pope Benedict XVI declared that the 1962 Roman Missal could still be used privately by any priest of the Latin Church and that enacted looser conditions for its use in celebrating Mass with a congregation, the Tridentine Mass was celebrated in France on the basis of Pope John Paul II's motu proprio Ecclesia Dei in 132 churches or chapels with the consent of the Ordinary of the place, and in 184 places served by the Society of Saint Pius X and its affiliated communities.