The Pope who Defied Napoleon

Last updated on: March 21, 2009 at 1:58 pm by Pat McNamara

The Pope who Defied Napoleon 2009-03-21T13:58:00-06:00 Pat McNamara

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Today in 1800 marks the day that Pope Pius VII (1800-1823) was crowned. Cardinal Luigi Barnaba Chiaramonte (1740-1823) came to the papal throne in exile, his predecessor Pope Pius VII having forcibly carried to France by Napoleon Bonaparte. The papal election had to be held in Austrian territory and a paper-mache crown was used for the coronation. The Church was still trying to recover from the effects of the French Revolution, and Cardinal Imola was open to dealing with the new French government under Bonaparte.

Napoleon was interested in straightening out Church-State relations in France not because he was a good Catholic, but because he wanted the support of a populace that was still strongly Catholic. In 1801 France and the Holy See signed a concordat that governed relations between the two for nearly a century. But Napoleon’s relationship with Pius was never easy. In 1804, Napoleon had the Pope crown him Emperor of the French, but at the last minute he snatched the crown away to let the pontiff know who was really in charge.

Still, Pius was not the puppet Napoleon wanted. In 1807, he tried to force Pius to join a league of Italian rulers (the pope was ruler of the Papal States at the time), but Pius refused to break his neutrality. When he demanded more French cardinals appointed, the pontiff again refused. In 1809, Napoleon annexed the Papal States and Pius excommunicated “all the robbers of Peter’s Patrimony” (but none of them by name). For five years Pius was a prisoner of the Emperor in France. Pius went on living simply in captivity, like the monk he had been before he was pope, saying his office, washing hie own clothes, and refusing to invest any French bishops.

In 1814, when Napoleon’s political situation worsened, he sent Pius back to Rome, where he was greeted as a hero. Eamon Duffy writes: “The fact that the papacy had the courage to defy the tyrant when all other governments bowed before him, lent a moral prestige of which the governments of subsequent generations had to take account.” Pius VII died in Rome in 1823.

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