Talk:Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution

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Older
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that stripped clerics of their property This is a misrepresentation of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which see... Septentrionalis 16:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Looks like this has been addressed by the time I'm reading the remark. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:22, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Now I have time to look at this page, and related pages, there is a deeper problem, which I must congratulate Jmabel for dealing with almost singlehanded. The 1911 Britannica articles on the French Revolution seem mostly to have been written by the same hand (?James Anthony Froude?; they're unsigned), with a double POV:
 * The Catholic church is the Scarlet woman;
 * the Revolution is the only thing worse: her natural offspring, Godless atheism, which explains all its actions.

The anonymous edit has removed the second POV, leaving the first. This is unquestionably an improvement; but I think in the long run there are two choices:
 * Make this a redirect to Cult of the Supreme Being, which is largely factual.
 * or rewrite, beginning roughly as follows:

''The Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution is a conventional description of the results of half-a-dozen separate policies:
 * The traditional Gallican policy that the Church of France should be subject to the French government rather than a foreign pontiff
 * That there should be no privileges in the new Revolutionary France, One and Indivisible
 * That all classes and orders should contribute to straightening out the disaster which Louis XVI had put the French finances into
 * enforcement of religious toleration
 * creation of a common patriotic ceremonial and symbolism
 * War with the Pope, as a temporal sovereign whose troops had killed a French officer on the grounds of the French embassy
 * Support of an alternate religion.''

''These were supported by different parties, at different times, at different lebels of government. Only the last will be called de-Christianization by a consensus, and it was limited to November 1793 and some months of 1794.''

Comments? Septentrionalis 22:41, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I generally agree with the the direction you want to take this. The "no privileges" thing can probably be fleshed out with some discussion of the events of 4 August 1789. The atheistic Cult of Reason certainly should be mentioned, as well as the theistic Cult of the Supreme Being. And much of this could be worded better, but I assume you were not intending to take this verbatim into the article. I say go for it. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:01, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
 * The Cult of the Supreme Being was not theistic - it was deistic.
 * A focus on "no privileges" is POV pushing - priviledges (real and supposed) had already been abolished in 1789, now the revolution went for "no differences", i.e. for a totalitarian society. Str1977 (talk) 09:51, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Non-Catholics
Some mention of Jews and Protestants for comparison? --84.20.17.84 10:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Descrimination?
Let's replace the infobox with one for the French revolution. JeffBurdges 10:13, 3 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add that infobox as well, but the religious persecution box should not be removed. There is no question that this matter constituted religious persecution. Mamalujo 19:45, 5 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi there. I don't mean to be a pain, but I think the religious persecution infobox is hardly warranted. While I fully agree that the Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution produced religious persecution, the subject of the article is not religious persecution in France during the Revolution in itself, and neither is the focus it is being given as an article. Of course there is room for the article to include mention of resulting persecution as a consequence of the whole process (in its own section, in related articles lists, etc), but if as Wikipedia editors we understand Infoboxes to be "... designed to be placed into main articles related to the topic area" and "...a broad class of templates commonly used in articles to present certain summary or overview information about the subject" (quoted from Manual of Style (infoboxes), I don't think the infobox on Religious Persecution and Discrimination should be inserted here. Otherwise, we'll end up with all Wikipedia articles being clogged with a dozen infoboxes on related topics. I mean, the Albigensian Crusade article (and all Crusade articles, for that matter) deals with religious persecution, but I wouldn't really add the template there, either, since it would not be central to the article, and it wouldn't serve to summarize any of the points or to link the article to a common "mother" article. Cheers! ;) Dr Benway (talk) 10:09, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Policies section
I see the current "Policies" section has virtually nothing in common with previous versions on the page. I admit this isn't something where I have the background to know exactly which points should be included, but obviously the focus purely on anti-clericalism in the current version isn't correct. I'll paste below the previous version, and hopefully editors will look into how to create something more complete (I will myself as I have time). Mackan79 (talk) 17:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Policies
The multiple policies supported by different parties, at different times, at different levels of government include:

Only the support of an alternate religion has been unanimously called de-Christianization by everybody, then and since.
 * The traditional Gallican policy that the Church of France should be subject to the French government rather than a foreign pontiff.
 * That there should be no privileges in the new Revolutionary France, One and Indivisible. The abolition of the Church's feudal privileges was of a piece with the abolition of the feudal privileges of the nobility.
 * That all classes and orders should contribute to straightening out the financial disaster which had initially caused Louis XVI to convene the Estates-General of 1789.
 * Adoption and enforcement of a policy of religious toleration.
 * Creation of a common patriotic ceremonial and symbolism.
 * Anti-clericalism.
 * War with the Pope, as a temporal sovereign whose troops had killed a French officer on the grounds of the French Embassy in Rome.
 * Support of an alternate religion, especially the Cult of the Supreme Being. (The Cult of Reason was the opposing program of the Hébertists, who never took power.) This was limited to November 1793 and some months of 1794.

Comments:

From looking through some of the sources, my basic issue here is the current focus on violence, and whether all of these were actually policies.

The piece by Frank Tallet states regarding the policies:


 * These ranged from the removal of plate, statues and other fittings from places of worship, the destruction of crosses, bells, shrines and other ‘external signs of worship’, the closure of churches, the enforced abdication and, occasionally, the marriage of constitutional priests, the substitution of a Revolutionary calendar for the Gregorian one, the alteration of personal and place names which had any ecclesiastical connotations to more suitably Revolutionary ones, through to the promotion of new cults, notably those of Reason and of the Supreme Being.

Regarding the constitutional Church, he says:


 * There is however no doubt about the success of the dechristianizers’ attack upon the constitutional church: the state had created it, and the state could destroy it. Unlike the attack upon the objects of the ‘’culte’’ there was no popular resistance to this assault on the representative of the faith, just as there had been no popular uprising to prevent the loss of the refractory clergy earlier on.  Threatened with death (occasionally), arrest, imprisonment, conscription or the loss of their income (more usually), perhaps 20,000 constitutional priests abdicated and handed over their letters of ordination.  An unknown number of others simply ceased their clerical functions; and between 6,000 and 9,000 married.

Spielvogel states:


 * In its attempt to create a new order, the National Convention also pursued a policy of dechristianization. The word saint was removed from street names, churches were pillaged and closed by revolutionary armies, and priests were encouraged to marry.  In Paris, the cathedral of Notre-Dame was designated the Temple of Reason. In November 1793, a public ceremony dedicated to the worship of reason was held in the former cathedral; patriotic maidens adorned in white dresses paraded before a temple of reason where the high altar once stood.  At the end of the ceremony, a female figure personifying Liberty rose out of the temple.  As Robespierre came to realize, dechristianization backfired because France was still overwhelmingly Catholic.

If these are the sources we are going by, it seems we should focus on the same issues as them, which appears to be much less on the violence and more on the social events and attempting to institute a cult of Reason. I notice Tallet also says there is a great deal of disagreement over how much popular support existed at the time. Mackan79 (talk) 16:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Please incorporate the material that you feel is needed. As to the earlier version, there are some plain factual errors there.  For example, it may be the case that religious toleration was proclaimed but it obviously was not practiced.  I think rather than reincorporate those unsourced statements, we should stick to sourced material.  You are correct that the sources focus on more than just the violence and the suppression of Christianity.  Please add the additional material and when I get around to editing the article again, I will as well. Mamalujo (talk) 16:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Now THIS is how it's done! Hooray, Reason! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.138.3.252 (talk) 17:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Sentences requiring citations removed, 2010
I've removed the following lines which have been marked as "Citation needed" since appx. 2007. The cite notices disrupt the article and I don't believe the sentences are completely necessary to an understanding of the subject. Anyone who can reinsert with valid sources is encouraged to do so.

From "The Church under the Ancien Régime" section:
 * "The Church however had difficulties and these were greatly added to by a deep dissatisfaction within its own ranks. A wide gap in living standards existed between members of the clergy.  Senior positions in the Church were occupied by members of noble families, giving them the benefit of the Church's wealth base and enormous annual revenues.  In stark contrast, the majority of priests in small communities lived in perpetual poverty. "

From "The Revolution and the Church" section:
 * "In an attempt to stem the growing unrest...." (Originally began opening sentence.)

and
 * "One version of the oath had the clergy swear to "hatred" of the nobility. " (originally ended 1st paragraph.)

SteveStrummer (talk) 23:26, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Italian
Please, can somebody traslate the page in Italian language? Some people just know how the French revolution was an antichristian government. The people must know the Truth. Thanks--78.12.56.165 (talk) 09:12, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
 * You shouldn't think of wikipedia as a propaganda outlet. Anyway, the dechristianisation process wasn't the ultimate goal or reason of the Revolution, nor were all revolutionaries in favor of dechristianisation (the most prominent personality of the Revolution, Robespierre, stopped the dechristianisation process), not to mention that the whole ordeal was relatively short-lived anyway, and stemmed from the resentment people felt towards the clergy which had abused its power for centuries.--Munin75 (talk) 23:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a short Italian article now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.184.203.175 (talk) 10:56, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Recent Category addition
I've removed the recent problematic addition of the "Category:Persecution by atheists" from this article as inappropriate and unsupported by reliable sources. The category misleads our readers by implying that persecution was inflicted because the persecutors were atheists (people who do not believe in gods), which is nonsensical. Atheism has no goal, creed or mission; it is merely the absence of belief in deities. While reliable sources say there has been persecution by totalitarian dictators and regimes, and communist regimes, and anti-clerical movements, and some of these even maintained a stance of "state atheism", there is no causal relationship between atheism and persecution of religious individuals. We already have more appropriate and accurate categories for this kind of persecution: Category:Anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union, Category:Anti-clericalism, Category:Religious persecution by communists, etc. Articles asserting causal persecution by a lack of belief have been deleted in the past. I've replaced the problematic cat with Category:Anti-clericalism. Xenophrenic (talk) 17:00, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
 * You may have a point but I think that there is a larger issue with this article. Many statements in this article are simply false, especially those written by user Jobas. One example, he claims (with a biased source to support it) that all churches not devoted to the Cult of Reason were closed. It is completely absurd as the Cult of Reason was only supported by a few groups, mostly hebertists. He also seems to confuse the Cult of Reason with jacobins who were completely different from hebertists and were mostly deists.
 * Many other elements in the article (written by other contributors, I guess) are largely fantasies. For instance : "The dechristianization of France reached its zenith around the middle of 1794" (not sourced and false, it was around the end of 1793), "While persecution of certain Roman Catholic clerics and monastic orders occurred during the Third Republic" (I would like to see a serious source for this claim, I would bet no one can provide one). To sum it up, this article has so many problems that the categories are only the tip of the iceberg. Eleventh1 (talk) 19:20, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I've checked those additional issues you've raised, Eleventh1, and I've tried to fix some of them. For example, I verified that "Jacobin period" isn't specified in the cited source.  There is a lot more work to be done.  Now I see that the same editor is trying to re-add unsourced original-research categories with an edit summary claiming, contrary to the sources:
 * (Dechristianization and persecution act are done as part of the expression of state-sponsored atheism)
 * Even one of biased sources says that the "French government formed a new, official 'religion of reason' on June 7th, 1794. Deistic in nature, its basic doctrine held that there was a Supreme Being, but that this entity was not the God of Christianity. I'll ping User:Jobas one more time to see if he'll engage in discussion here instead of trying to edit-war unsourced material back into the article. Xenophrenic (talk) 09:32, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Here my edit that been removed: which was one of history's first examples of state-sponsored atheism. and it's supported with three sources.--Jobas (talk) 13:14, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, it is not supported by 3 reliable AND relevant sources... There have been thousands and thousands of texts written about the French Revolution and many of them are very unreliable, to say the least (I have read books claiming that the French Revolution was a conspiracy orchestrated by satanists, others by free-masons or jews, you cannot believe everything you read). I am sure that the authors you are citing in your edit are serious and really believe what they are writing but it is not enough. Dale McGowan is not an actual historian and none of the persons you are citing are specialists of the French Revolution (and Gregory Fremont-Barne does not claim that the dechristianization was a form of state-sponsored atheism). There is no state-sponsored atheism during the French Revolution because atheistic movements were not sponsored by the state. It is that simple. Eleventh1 (talk) 11:27, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Editing plan
I think that this article's biggest weakness is its lack of citations. So one way that I will contribute is by adding sources where they are needed. I've found an article called THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH by Betros, Gemma that I can use to support the first two statements (about the Catholic Church's amount of property and income) that are missing citations.

I also noticed that the section titled "The Revolution and the Church" is much longer than all the other sections, so I'll try to break it up into a couple of different sections.

Bibliography

Betros, Gemma. "The French Revolution And The Catholic Church." History Review 68 (2010): 16-21. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

Melleuish, Greg. "Liberalism And God." Institute Of Public Affairs Review 61.3 (2009): 36-38. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

Van Kley, Dale K. "Christianity As Casualty And Chrysalis Of Modernity: The Problem Of Dechristianization In The French Revolution." American Historical Review 108.4 (2003): 1081-1104. Academic Search Complete. Web. 19 Feb. 2017.

Aaannnnnnaaa (talk) 01:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Relocation of content
I've reverted this edit, which had an edit summary stating (redundant content to body of article). Can we have an intelligible reason for the content relocation, please? Xenophrenic (talk) 23:51, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Gibberish
Is there any reason why I shouldn't translate engrish back into English? Xenophrenic (talk) 21:09, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ Xenophrenic (talk) 14:24, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The cited source says: "At first the new revolutionary government attacked church corruption and the wealth of the bishops and abbots who ruled the church -- causes with which many Christians could identify". I reword again to conform to the source. Here the new reword an action that even many Christians could identify with.--Jobas (talk) 03:41, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Your more recent changes aren't as unintelligible as prior changes. Only a minor grammatical fix is needed now.  (And FYI: it's "the cited source says", not "the source cited"; and it's "conform to the source", not "to confirm the source".) Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 07:40, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Theist, deist, atheistic...
There appears to be some confusion among the sources as to how various Cults and Festivals should be described. The Cult of Reason and Cult of the Supreme Being in particular: What is the consensus on the defining traits for each of the several 'cults' that sprang up during the Revolution? Xenophrenic (talk) 03:49, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Heterodoxy, Spinozism, and Free Thought in Early-Eighteenth-Century Europe: Studies on the Traité des Trois Imposteurs; Volume 148 of International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées; Silvia Berti, Françoise Charles-Daubert, R.H. Popkin; Springer Science & Business Media, 1996; Pg. 302 - "Robespierre's cult of the Supreme Being was not the only deist religion that came to be during the Revolution. Some months before, the de-christianizers had rededicated churches as 'Temples of Reason' instituting ceremonies pompously delivering the precious metals of religious objects to the State. The Cult of Reason died, as did Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being, along with their leaders, but deists less powerful in government started a movement of 'Theophilanthropy', which lingered into the nineteenth century.''
 * Being in Time to the Music by Ross, David A.; Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007 - "This Cult of Reason or Deism reached its logical conclusion in the French Revolution..."
 * Daily Life During the French Revolution; James Maxwell Anderson; Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007; Pgs. 152-153 - "CULT OF REASON - A rational religious philosophy known as Deism flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries..."
 * Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century; Gerald R. Cragg; Cambridge University Press, 2013; Pg. 40 - "The cult of reason, which made Deism popular..."
 * Deism in France 1789-1799; David Kyle Heenan; University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1953; Pg. 261 - "Deistic thought took on a closer resemblance to religion when the Cult of Reason made its bid for religious supremacy..."
 * The Master Game: Unmasking the Secret Rulers of the World; Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval; Red Wheel Weiser, 2011; Pgs. 13, 451 - "Sometimes referred to as the 'Cult of Reason' but more commonly as the 'Cult of the Supreme Being', it seems that this new religion..."
 * Hi, ScrapIronIV. I've removed your addition per the concerns mentioned just above.  Could you help me understand the reasoning behind your edit?  Thanks in advance, Xenophrenic (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Deism coexisted with the Cult of Reason, and you are conflating the two. They are were separate movements.  The Cult of Reason was practically anti-theistic, and was anthropocentric.  It's only god was the people themselves. What was venerated were the ideals of liberty, truth, and philosophy - the perfection of man through thought.  The Cult of the Supreme Being was Robespierre's response to it, and it was specifically Deist in its acknowledgement of a God. Necessary, to consolidate his power in a formerly Catholic nation.  Scr ★ pIron IV 18:32, 12 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I see you've gone ahead and re-added your preferred problematic wording. I thought we were discussing this, rather than bulldozing preferred wording into the article against objections expressed here. If it is your preference that we add unsupported or conflicting information while it is being discussed, we can certainly do that, but that doesn't seem optimal.  So following your lead, I've gone ahead and added the information from other sources (including those above), which you omitted and have not addressed.
 * Deism coexisted with the Cult of Reason, and you are conflating the two. --ScrapIronIV
 * You appear to misunderstand. I've "conflated" nothing; are you saying the reliable sources mentioned above have conflated the two?  What -I- did was merely ask that we reconcile the conflicting sources.
 * The Cult of Reason ... It's only god was the people themselves. --ScrapIronIV
 * Not exactly, according to your source. There was the Goddess of Reason and/or Liberty, which some considered only "abstract beings" while others deified them.  By the way, nowhere on page 343 of your source is the cult described as "atheistic", although in subsequent pages Robespierre did indeed characterize the dechristianization movement in those terms.  Perhaps you misread?  Looking forward to your thoughts in this matter. Xenophrenic (talk) 13:51, 15 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Since you appear to have stepped away from the discussion, I've gone ahead and removed the addition that failed verification. Please let me know if there are any objections.  I'm going to continue to review reliable sources on the subject matter, and I'll keep an eye out for supporting information. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 17:09, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I have gone ahead and restored the properly cited version.  Scr ★ pIron IV 17:24, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
 * That does not appear to be the case. The source you added does not support the content you added, as I mentioned above.  Did you miss that?  In addition, you also removed properly cited and supported content, without explanation.  An explanation would be appreciated.  Would you care to work with me to produce acceptable content that reflects the reliable sources?  Xenophrenic (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

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New section: aftermath?
As a student of the activities of Anna de Meeus, having taken charge of her tomb and the last Convent of the Order of the Eucharist, I think you might consider an "aftermath section" Essentially, by the time some social order was restored after the defeat of Napoleon, and the French economy had recovered, the rising middle class, financed by the Industrial Revolution in the Charleroi basin, stretching as far as Lens, returned to their historical affiliation to Catholicism. French resistance and contempt of the Belgian provinces led to Revolution in 1830, and a major financier, Ferdinand Meeus, at the head of the Société Générale, provided economic stability. Ennobled as Count de Meeus, he became the power behind the Belgian throne, and so was courted by the Church. His eldest daughter Anna soon provided distraction, and the result was inevitable: the Nuncio, Giocchino Pecci, was sent packing, declared persona non grata, taking the infant with him. Anna was bound to the Convent. However, no ordinary sisterhood would follow. Daddy paid for her to start an Order of her own as a matter of social welfare in the slums of Brussels, employing the lacemakers put out of work by mechanisation, in the production of quality handmade lace: this was the start of the Belgian handmade lace tradition. Needing somewhere to work, he acquired an old convent on the Rue des Sols for her, as it was very close to the Societe Generale offices, and so he could keep an eye on her. The convent itself came with a Eucharistic vocation established in 1433 by Pope Eugenius IV, implementing the justification for the inversion of the power structure in society at the end of the period of plagues following the Black Death, which caused a schism in the Papacy, decided on in the Council of Constance 1414-18: the supporting academic argument, Dufay's L'Homme Armé cantus firmus mass and van Eyck's Fountain of Life (Prado) and Mystic Lamb (St Bavo's Gent), are often seen as sparking the Renaissance. Some aspects of the Convent may also bear on the next-door Terarken hospice, however I'm drifting too far from my theme to pursue the issue here. Pecci rose in the Church, and eventually became Pope Leo XIII, with his son Camillo (OK, officially "nepote", "nephew", whence the term nepotism - but the de Meeus family acknowledge him as a member of the family) as his capo di garda nobile, the Head of the Papal Noble Guard, whose role was functionally that of the American Presidential Secret Service detachment. Anna's Order was raised to the rank of Prima Primaria, allowing her access to the Pope at all hours of the day and night, and awarded the rank of ArchiAssociation, chief among the Eucharistic Orders. That was partly justified by a geographic connection with what remained of Ruusbroec's Groenendael priory, Jan van Ruusbroec having consolidated the Devotio Moderna consolidation of Eucharistic adoration in the 1380s. Having set that context, what should now be considered in the orientation of this meme is the way Anna's Order worked its commission out. Effectively, it sparked a counter-reformation known as the Restoratives from the 1450s onwards, and that was very much inspired by the need to reedify the Churches. I'll leave the details in France to you, as it very much followed Anna's work under the envy of the founder of the Marist Order, Pierre Julien Eymard, "the Saint of the Eucharist", whose diary is worth reading as a source text in the religious jealousies of the day. You should not disregard the associations with Crowley's Satanist movement, OTO and their French affiliates, as all was grist to his mill: this is the root of the wider abuse of children which set in across the Roman Church and it's current crisis, the headache has gone on for millennia, although never quite so institutionalised as in the 20th Century. I cannot tackle this as it would be original research, but I can point the way for another to do so.