Concordat

The Catholic church historically claimed not to be bound to one form of government over another, but was willing to work with any kind of government, so long as the rights of God and believers were maintained. Pius XI wrote in 1933:

Universally known is the fact that the Catholic Church is never bound to one form of government more than to another, provided the Divine rights of God and of Christian consciences are safe. She does not find any difficulty in adapting herself to various civil institutions, be they monarchic or republican, aristocratic or democratic.[4]

From a church–state perspective, the contentions regarding concordats involves two perspectives.

From a Catholic perspective, the Church has the moral and theological right to enter into diplomatic relations with states in order to reach agreements regarding the care of its members residing there. This is the concept of Libertas ecclesiae (freedom of the Church).

However, from a non-Catholic perspective, Catholic Church privileges pose certain concerns regarding religious freedom, such as:

• concordats give to the Church a privileged position that other religious groups are denied (European history in numerous books reveals this fact)
• concordats may not be "the same as treaties" because they are entered into by an entity that is both religious and political in nature, viz., the Catholic Church, with exception to states which are expressly atheist or are identified as choosing anti-religious views, whereas any other treaty is regularly between two sovereign entities on a horizontal level, i.e., purely political in nature,[5] and
• depending on the negotiations agreed upon in the concordat, some religious groups face the threat of being marginalized. For example, in Spain, although the Constitution guarantees religious freedom, the Church is mentioned by name, and in practice holds a pre-eminent position among other religious groups.[6] In recent years, debate has occurred regarding whether the Spanish government should maintain a concordat with the Vatican.[7]

Due to these concerns, the United States did not establish diplomatic ties to the Vatican until the Ronald Reagan administration in 1984; and, to this day, the United States does not have a concordat with the Vatican, despite the two having a mutual "compromise" in terms of relationship.[8]

The Signing of the Concordat between France and the Holy See, 15 July 1801. Artist: François Gérard, (1770-1837). Musée National du Château de Versailles, Versailles

• The Concordat of 1801 was an agreement between Napoleon and Pope Pius VII. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly had taken Church properties and issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Subsequent laws abolished Christian holidays.[9] Many religious leaders had either gone into exile or been executed during the Reign of Terror. The Church gave up any claims to lands confiscated after 1790, but secured the right to public worship, subject to any public safety concerns on the part of the local prefect. Napoleon was able to pacify French Catholics, while limiting the papacy's influence in France. While the concordat restored some ties to the papacy, it largely favored the state.[10] Within a year Napoleon unilaterally amended the agreement with the Organic Articles legislating religious practice.

Some concordats guarantee the Catholic Church the tax-exempt status of a charity, being by fact the largest charitable institution in the world, either stating this explicitly, as in Brazil (2008, Article 15)[11] and Italy (1984, Article 7.3),[12] or phrasing it indirectly, as in Portugal (2004, art. 12).[13]

Papal primacy, supremacy and infallibility
Overview Primacy of Peter & Papal primacy Papal supremacy Papal infallibility First Vatican Council § Papal infallibility
Patriarchs compared to popes Papal primacy Episcopal see § Catholic Church Apiarius of Sicca § Appeal to the bishop of Rome Pentarchy § After the East–West Schism Pope John XIX § Life Gregory II Youssef § First Vatican Council Ravenna Document Eastern Orthodox opposition to papal supremacy
Ecumenical councils compared to popes Conciliarity Conciliarism § Modern conciliarism Ecumenical council § Acceptance of the councils To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation § The Third Wall: Authority to Call a Council Ultrajectines
Catholic episcopal councils compared to popes Febronianism Christus Dominus § Controversy The Ratzinger Report
Political rulers compared to popes Gallicanism Patronato real Josephinism Febronianism Cisalpinism Appointment of Catholic bishops § Centralization of papal power Concordat § List Papal deposing power
Existing dogma compared to popes Development of doctrine Cum ex apostolatus officio Pascendi Dominici gregis
Objections and controversy Ecclesiastical differences between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church § Papal authority Ignaz von Döllinger § Papal authority Ultramontanism § Position of other apostolic churches Papal infallibility § Objections Old Catholic Church § First Vatican Council, Old Catholic Union of Utrecht Sedevacantism Josip Juraj Strossmayer § Catholic diplomacy Ultrajectine

When the political will is present, such concordat privileges can be extended by domestic legislation. In 1992 the tax exemption granted the Church by the Italian concordat was interpreted by a law which permits the Catholic Church to avoid paying 90% of what it owes to the state for its commercial activities.[14] Thus, a small shrine within the walls of a cinema, holiday resort, shop, restaurant or hotel is sufficient to confer religious exemption.[15] In June 2007 Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Competition announced an investigation of this. Then, in August, the deputy finance minister in Romano Prodi's fragile center-left coalition said the issue needed to be tackled in the next year's budget.[16] However, after that nothing more about this was heard from the Barroso Commission and a few months later the Prodi government fell.

The Slovak concordat (2000, art. 20.2) ensures that church offertories are "not subject to taxation or to the requirement of public accountability".[17]

This is also the case in Côte d'Ivoire, where far larger sums are involved. The Basilica at Yamoussoukro, is estimated to have cost $300 million, and the additional running expenses for what is the largest church in the world are also shielded from scrutiny by the 1992 concordat concluded with the Ivorian president. Houphouët-Boigny claimed that these funds came from his private fortune. A Vatican official is reported to have called the agreement over the foundation set up to administer these funds "a delicate matter".[18] Nevertheless, this concordat ensures that the foundation's income and assets remain untaxed (art. 9.1), it holds these funds beyond the reach of both criminal and civil law (art. 7.1), it permits this money to be sent out of the country (art. 13.2) and it keeps all the foundation's documents "inviolable", in other words, secret (art. 8).[19]

In Colombia there was a crisis between state and church in 1994 when Attorney-General Gustavo de Greiff accused several bishops of having illegal contacts with the FARC guerrillas. It turned out that under Colombia's concordat with the Holy See, members of the clergy could only be investigated by ecclesiastical courts which are ruled by canon law, and that the bishops were therefore immune from investigation by the civil authorities on what many in Colombia considered to be a serious felony.

There have been at least several hundred concordats over the centuries.[20] The following is a sortable list of the concordats and other bilateral agreements concluded by the Holy See.

Treaty	Contracting party	Date of conclusion	Date of entering into force
1107 Concordat of London with Henry I of	England	1 Aug 1107
1122 Concordat of Worms between Pope Calixtus II and Henry V of the	Holy Roman Empire	23 Sep 1122
1161 Concordat between Pope Alexander III and Géza II of	Hungary	1161
1169 Concordat between Pope Alexander III and Stephen III of	Hungary	1169
1210 Parliament of Ravennika between Pope Innocent III and the princes of	Frankish Greece	May 1210
1277 Concordat of Tonsberg between Jon Raude, Archbishop of Nidaros and Magnus VI of	Norway	1277
1289 Concordat of the Forty Articles	Portugal	7 March 1289
1418 Concordats of Constance	Aragon, Castile,  England,  France,  Holy Roman Empire,  Naples,  Navarre,  Portugal,  Scotland,  Sicily,  Venice		21 March 1418
1426 Concordat between Pope Martin V and Charles VII of	France	1426
Fürsten Konkordat between Pope Eugenius IV and the Princes Electors of the	Holy Roman Empire	Jan 1447
1516 Concordat of Bologna between Pope Leo X and King Francis I of	France	Sep 1516
1610 Concordat of Mi'kmaw between Pope Paul V and Grand Chief Henri Membertou of	Mi'kmaw Nation	1610[21]
1753 Concordat of Bologna between Pope Benedict XIV and King Ferdinand VI of	Spain	1753
1801 Concordat between Pope Pius VII and Napoléon of	France	15 July 1801
1813 Concordat of Fontainebleau between Pope Pius VII and Napoléon of	France	25 Jan. 1813
1817 Concordat between the Holy See and	Bavaria	5 Jun 1817
1817 Concordat between the Holy See and King Louis XVIII of	France	11 Jun 1817
1827 Concordat between the Holy See and the	Netherlands	16 Sep. 1827
1847 Concordat between the Holy See and	Russia	3 Aug 1847
1851 Concordat[22] between the Holy See and	Spain	16 Mar 1851	11 May 1851
1852 Concordat between the Holy See and	Costa Rica	7 Oct 1852	Dec 1852
1854 Concordat between the Holy See and	Guatemala	1852	1854
1855 Concordat between the Holy See and	Austria	18 Aug 1855
1862 Concordat[23] between the Holy See and	El Salvador	Apr 1862
1882 Concordat between the Holy See and	Russia	23 Dec. 1882
1886 Concordat between the Holy See and	Portugal	23 June 1886
1886 Concordat between the Holy See and	Montenegro	18 Aug. 1886
1887 Concordat between the Holy See and	Colombia	1887
1914 Concordat[24] between the Holy See and	Serbia	24 June 1914	20 March 1915[25]
1922 Concordat between the Holy See and	Latvia	30 May 1922[26]	3 Nov 1922
1925 Concordat between the Holy See and	Poland	10 Feb 1925[26]	2 Jul 1925
1927 Concordat between the Holy See and	Romania	10 May 1927	29 May 1929[27]
1927 Concordat between the Holy See and	Lithuania	27 Sep 1927[28]
1928 Concordat between the Holy See and	Colombia	5 May 1928
1929 Lateran Treaty[29] between the Holy See and	Italy	11 Feb 1929	7 Jun 1929
1929 Prussian Concordat between the Holy See and	Prussian Free State	14 July 1929
1933 Concordat between the Holy See and	Austria	5 June 1933
1933 Reichskonkordat between the Holy See and	Germany	20 Jul 1933
1940 Concordat between the Holy See and	Portugal	7 May 1940
1953 Concordat[30][31] between the Holy See and	Spain	27 Aug 1953	27 Oct 1953
1954 Concordat[32][33] between the Holy See and	Dominican Republic	16 June 1954
1993 Concordat between the Holy See and	Poland	28 Jul 1993	25 Apr 1998
1993 Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and	Israel	30 Dec 1993	10 Mar 1994
1996 Agreements between the Holy See and	Croatia	18 Dec 1996[34][35][36]	11[34][35] and 25 Feb 1997[36]
1997 Agreement between the Holy See and	Hungary	20 June 1997[37]	3 April 1998
1997 Legal Personality Agreement[38] between the Holy See the State of	Israel	10 Nov 1997
1998 Agreement between the Holy See and	Croatia	9 Oct 1998[39]	30 Dec 1998[39]
2000 Basic Agreement[40] between the Holy See and	Palestine	15 February 2000	15 February 2000
2000 Agreement[41] between the Holy See and	Latvia	8 November 2000	25 October 2002
2004 Treaty between the Holy See and	Slovakia	13 May 2004	9 Jul 2004[42]
2004 Concordat between the Holy See and	Portugal	18 May 2004
2004 Concordat between the Holy See and	Slovenia	28 May 2004
Basic Agreement[43] between the Holy See and	Bosnia and Herzegovina	19 Apr 2006	25 Oct 2007
2008 Concordat between the Holy See and	Brazil	13 Nov 2008
2009 Concordat between the Holy See and	Schleswig-Holstein	12 Jan 2009
2015 Comprehensive agreement[44] between the Holy See and	Palestine	26 Jun 2015[45]	2 Jan 2016[46]
2016 Framework agreement on matters of mutual interest between the Holy See and	Democratic Republic of Congo	20 May 2016
2016 Framework agreement on matters of mutual interest between the Holy See and	Central African Republic	8 Sep 2016
2016 Framework agreement regarding the legal status of the Catholic Church between the Holy See and	Benin	22 Oct 2016

• Baker, Michael (2010). "Security and the sacred: examining Canada's legal response to the clash of public safety and religious freedom". Touro Law Center: International Law Review, Vol. 13 (1). Available online.
• DiMarco, Erica (2009). "The tides of Vatican influence in Italian reproductive matters: from abortion to assisted reproduction". Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 10 (2) Spring. Available online.
• Hosack, Kristen A. (2010). "Napoleon Bonaparte's Concordat and the French Revolution". Constructing the Past, Vol. 11 (1), article 5. Available online
• Hughes, John Jay (1974). "The Reich Concordat 1933: Capitulation or Compromise?" Australian Journal of Politics & History, 20 (2), pp. 164–175.
• Metz, René, "What is Canon Law?" (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1960 [1st Edition])
• Petkoff, Peter (2007). "Legal perspectives and religious perspectives of religious rights under international law in the Vatican Concordats (1963–2004)". Law and Justice: The Christian Law Review, 158, p. 30- online (payment may be required).
• Plichtová, Jana and Petrjánošová, Magda (2008). "Freedom of religion, institution of conscientious objection and political practice in post-communist Slovakia". Human Affairs, 18 (1), June, pp. 37–51. Available online here.
• "Concordat" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). 1911. pp. 832–834.

• Concordat Watch