The contribution aims to examine the guidelines of the concordat practice in the 19th- 20th centuries, from the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 to the recent “Agreements” which include new subjects as well as traditional ones. The concordat practice allowed the Cath- olic Church not only to enjoy the freedom necessary to carry out its mission, but it was also functional in re-establishing a balance with temporality, especially after some historical periods of particular conflict, including the French Revolution and the Roman Question. From the comparison between the concordats preceding and following the Second Vatican Council, both qualitative and quantitative transformations emerge which, however, do not affect the essential function of the concordat instrument, that of a navigational compass in an increasingly multicultural, secularized and plural world.