Civil Constitution of the Clergy The Roman Catholic Church was the dominating religion until the Revolution of 1789 when the revolutionaries sought to overthrow not only the monarchy and its supporters but also the whole social and political system including the Church Although the Church survived the revolution according to the ideology of the new republic it could no longer remain a separate estate with its own possessions Therefore the new government confiscated the land and assets belonging to the Church and auctioned them off to help resolve the financial problems that had led to the revolution The state also attempted a huge restructuring of the Church hierarchy and demanded that the clergy swear allegiance to the French government ahead of the Church Only a small percentage of priests complied with this request but nevertheless this attempt to bring the Catholic Church under state control can be seen as the beginning of the development of secularism in France As a description of the events of 1790 this lacks both neutrality and accuracy The National Assembly did not conduct an entire revolution of the structure of society they confiscated Church land to pay the national debt If they had what would have been left for the Jacobins of 1793 to do