Concordat

Concordat, agreement between the Roman Catholic Church and a secular government on matters that concern the Church in that country. Since no government can bind succeeding administrations, concordats may be terminated in the same manner as any other treaty. For example, the concordat re-establishing the Roman Catholic Church in France after the French Revolution was abrogated by France on the separation of church and state in 1905. The most important concordats of recent times have been the Lateran Treaty (1929) with Italy, establishing the independent state of Vatican City, and the agreement that superseded it in 1984.