‘Il Nous Faut les Hommes’: Catholicism, Masculinity and the Culture Wars in France, 1880–1914

Abstract

This article investigates a campaign by the French Catholic Church to bring men to Mass in the first decades of the Third Republic. Historians have long noted the gender imbalance in religious practice in France in this era. Less attention has been paid, however, to the mobilization on the part of leading clerics to tackle the problem of male religious indifference. This response took the form of a range of initiatives – pastoral visits, male-only Masses, study circles, missions and more. But the Church went further in order to overcome the obstacle of the ‘respect humain’, the fear of public mockery that kept so many men away from the Church doors. In order to inspire courage in laymen, it published narratives of Catholic heroes. Another means of encouraging piety was an association dedicated to the Sacred Heart which organized a male-only pilgrimage to Lourdes. An understanding of this campaign to evangelize men throws light on a neglected area of religious history, the relationship between religion and masculinity. It also offers a new dimension on the War of Two Frances which reached such a peak of intensity in the decade after 1900.