The Catholic church and the French nation, 1589-1989

Abstract

Paris is worth a mass was the cynical response of the Protestant King Henri IV who changed his faith to secure the throne of France. Principle and pragmatism have since been, in alteration, the two prime constituents of French Catholicism. For over 1000 years the Roman Catholic Church in France has played an integral role in the life of the French people. It was once so powerful as to be deemed a threat to the independence and strength of the French state and monarchy. The Bourbon kings of France managed to make the French Church into an effective instrument of political and social conformity and order. But in tying the church so closely to the monarchy they made it so conservative and fearful of change that it was unable to face the challenges of modern life which emerged in the 18th century and the French Revolution. Consequently the Church consciously chose to defend the established order of bourgeois France in the 19th century, despite its fundamental antipathy towards the bourgeoisie. It also directed the revolutionary implications of its own theology and history in an ultra-reactionary direction. This culminated in the Church's support for authoritarian and reactionary movements, such as the Action Francaise and Marshal Petain's National Revolution. Norman Ravitch interprets the interaction of the Roman Catholic Church with the national life of France over the last 400 years. Today, Ravitch argues, this process has left French Catholicism redundant - more a historical monument than a living institution.