French Revolution

The French Revolution

While reading the books on Church History, some historians if not all, highlighted the history of a particular political situation in France that also caught the attention of the world. French Revolution whether it is seen purely as a political upheaval, but there seems to be profound connection to Church’s history. How did it happen? What was the main objective of the revolution that costs thousands of lives?

A brilliant observer said that the weakening of piety in the faithful paved the way for French Revolution which had a profound affinity of the Pseudo-Reformation. It carried out a work in every respect symmetrical to that of Pseudo-Reformation. The Constitutional Church it attempted to set up before sinking into deism and atheism was an adaptation of the Church of France to the spirit of Protestantism. The political work of French Revolution was but the transposition to the sphere of the State of the “reform” the more radical Protestant sect had adopted in the matter of ecclesiastical organization:

-          The revolt against the King corresponding to the revolt against the Pope;

-          The revolt of the common people against the nobles, to the revolt of the ecclesiastical “common people,” the faithful against the “aristocracy” of the Church, the clergy;

-          And finally the affirmation of popular sovereignty, to the government of certain sect by by the faithful in varying degrees. (1)

French Revolution began in 1789 and ended late 1790s. It was a movement influenced by Enlightenment ideals, uprooting centuries-old institutions such as absolute monarchy and the feudal systems. (2) It had a master plan, it was not by chance that French Revolution broke up. The first thing that happened was to form a revolutionary government by overthrowing King Louis XVI. There were threats against the priests and bishops demanding them to swear an oath of allegiance to the new regime or lose their office. The government finally began to dechcristianize France and set up a new religion. (3)

French mobs storm Bastille

 

 Others viewed that French Revolution began as a non-violent experiment in reforming French government,  depriving the King to rule as a monarch by divine right and as a result the Catholic Church was bound to be intimately affected by its overthrow. (4)

The wave of revolutionary fervor and widespread hysteria quickly swept the countryside. Revolting against years of exploitation, peasants looted and burned the homes of tax collectors, landlords and the seigniorial elite. Known as the Great Fear (“la Grande peur”), the agrarian insurrection hastened the growing exodus of nobles from the country and inspired the National Constituent Assembly to abolish feudalism on August 4, 1789, signing what the historian Georges Lefebvre later called the “death certificate of the old order.” (5)

Amidst mass hysteria, September Massacre took place. Many priests were killed and hacked into pieces. About 30,000 priests fled, most ending up Papal States (4,000), Switzerland (5,000), England (8,000). From September 1793 to July 1794, seventeen thousand to death sentences and ten thousand died in jails, plus thousands of unaccounted deaths. The number of deaths during The Reign of Terror was critical. The non-violence experiment to reform the French government was just a façade, violence was really the motor of the Revolution. (6)
A historian noted that between September 6 to November 30, 1793,  French Revolution planned and determined to abolish Christianity. Just a week after the Convention, after deliberations which lasted through most of the month of October, they removed the date of Incarnation of Our Lord and  liturgical festivals. The months and weeks were changed; no longer seven days a week but ten, thus getting rid of Sunday Mass. It was on October 24 that Christian era was officially abolished in France. (7)

St. Catherine Laboure

St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

  

Indeed, it was the weakening of the piety that pave the way for this terrible crisis. Knowing these situations from all eternity, Our Lord (Sacred Heart of Jesus) manifested to St. Margaret Mary (June 17, 1689), His command that the King of France should consecrate the nation to the Scared Heart. (8) Exactly, hundred years later French Revolution exploded.  The Mother God also appeared to St. Catherine Laboure (1830), precisely to prevent this terrible situations and ask that a miraculous medal should be struck and distributed. (9)

 

Looking at these events and divine interventions, French Revolution was not just chapter in French history but also and important event in Church’s history. The Catholic Church again crossed the waves of persecutions as it was before. Saints and martyrs gave witness in those terrible times. They set an example, it is for us to imitate them with so much hope, for the Lord is with us and HIS victory is certain.

Reference:

  1.      Correa, Plinio de Oliviera, Revolution and Counter-Revolution, on French Revolution, pages 16-17 

  2.       http://www.history.com/topics/french-revolution

  3.        Schreck, Alan, The Compact History of the Catholic Church, page 90

  4.       Bokenkotter, Thomas, A Concise History of the Catholic Church, page 257-258

  5.       http://www.history.com/topics/french-revolution

  6.       Vidmar, John, O.P. The Catholic Church through the Ages, pages 272-273
  7. Caroll, Warren H., The Guillotine and the Cross, page 134

  8.     Testa, Fr. Marco, Learn from Me (Devotion to The Sacred Heart), page 12

  9.   Dirvin,  Fr. Joseph, C.M. St. Catherine Laboure Of the Miracolous Medal, page 92