French Catholic Men at War 1939–1940: A Study of Faith and Masculinity in the Field

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the burgeoning scholarship on the intersection of gender and religious faith and practice and engages with new interpretations of the feminisation thesis. Specifically, it sheds light on French Catholic masculinities through a unique body of sources, letters written by soldiers, lay and religious, to the Carmel of Lisieux from the mobilisation in September 1939 to the defeat in June 1940. The correspondents were devotees of the most loved saint of the modern era, Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–97). The letters reveal the deep resonance of Theresian teaching and the ways in which men in the field consciously aimed to model a female saint known as the Little Flower. The material under review points to the limitations of strictly binary gendered interpretations of expressions of belief. Ordinary Catholic men embraced popular devotional practices that have been labelled as ‘feminised’. The evidence suggests, further, that there was a fluidity between masculine and feminine Catholic identities and that there were multiple non‐binary possibilities for the articulation of Catholic manhood at this time.