The man who fought papal infallibility

From America Magazine-

The French Revolution and its pan-European, Napoleonic aftermath traumatized the traditional ruling classes, clerical and lay. The revolution’s cry of liberty, equality and fraternity turned out to be, as they saw it, a recipe for carnage and chaos. When the revolutionary government seized the property of the French church, it reduced to penury that extraordinarily wealthy institution.

Wherever Napoleon’s armies went—and they went just about everywhere—an unbending policy of secularization followed, which included suppression of religious institutes and radical reorganization of church structures. In the Treaty of Tolentino, 1797, Pope Pius VI, thoroughly humiliated, had to pay a huge indemnity, agree to French occupation of the most important cities in the Papal States, like Bologna and Ferrara, and cede to Napoleon possession of hundreds of precious manuscripts and works of art. He died two years later in France as Napoleon’s prisoner.

More here-

https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/06/13/man-who-fought-papal-infallibility