"Interesting that Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo were all educated by the church. Copernicus and Bruno were priests themselves."
Why is that interesting? From 500 to 1500 when the church was firmly in power there was very little education and all of it (when it did occur for the wealthy) was under the authority of the church and taught by priests. Education was eventually the undoing of the church but the point is that ALL education (other than secret Jewish education) was through the catholic church.
To understand the pervasiveness of the church consider the modern country of Canada where the school system was only deconfessionalized in the year 2000. Consider that parts of Canada still maintain publicly funded catholic and protestant school boards.
Still in the late 19th century these are the facts of the catholic church in Quebec as stated by Claude Bélanger,
Department of History,
Marianopolis College
faculty.marianopolis.edu
* Mid-XIXth Century Ultramontane beliefs in Quebec
o Power comes from God, and flows downward to the pope, the Church and then to civil authorities. In all matters of faith, the Pope is infallible
o Church and State are united but the State is subordinated to the Church; one is a divine institution the other is earthly.
o The Church determines the extent of its jurisdiction, authority and influence. None may interfere with that.
o They propound a conservative vision of the world, oppose tolerance, democracy, freedom of thought and of the press. They also oppose, in the European context, the principle of nationalities.
o They refuse to compromise with the ideas coming out of the French Revolution and with progress.
o They emphasize duties as opposed to rights.
o They support Church intervention into politics, so that the ‘true’ principles will win. They were shocked when legislation to outlaw this ‘undue influence’ in politics was enacted. Their political interference benefitted the Conservative (‘Bleu’ the colour of heaven) Party and condemned the Liberal Party (‘Rouge’ the colour of revolutionaries and of hell) to permanent opposition.
o They stressed an ultramontane form of nationalism (emphasis on the three pillars of survival); nationalism is emptied of political content; they preach the three myths of agriculturalism, anti-statism and messianism and display xenophobic tendencies.
o The United States and France (not the ‘true’ Catholic France!) are seen as the source of nearly all evils in modern society
Now keep in mind that the catholic control of education was complete up until about 1960!
_______________________
In this period, the Church will gain many privileges in Quebec: full guarantees were extended to confessional schools; indeed, the only schools permitted in Quebec were confessional schools; all civil registries were kept by the Church; the only form of marriage acceptable was a religious marriage and divorces could only be achieved through an act of the Federal Parliament; Church corporations were not taxed and the tithe was legally sanctioned. In general, the Church of Quebec controlled education, health services and charitable institutions. If we consider that the role of a state is to regulate society and provide to it social services, then in Quebec in the late XIXth the Church had become, in practice, the State.
6. 1896-1960: The Triumphant Church
Having achieved the pinnacle of its influence and power in the preceding period the Church sought to ‘sacralized’ or ‘Christianize’ all aspects and classes of French Canadian society in the next period. In practice, the Church
* Sought the training and renewal of the elite through increasing involvement in the classical colleges (there were several dozens established in this period, including a number for women who had been neglected previously). Many associations and movements, addressed to the elite, were established in this period: among them were the Association Catholique de la Jeunesse Canadienne-francaise (ACJC), l’École Sociale Populaire, and the Semaines Sociales du Canada. The French Catholic universities were vastly expanded to accommodate the elite.
* Promoted the Christianization of the masses; a vast network of catholic social action groups were established in the parishes of the province; the Church also assumed the leadership in the temperance movement. Some parishes were known to have up to 30-40 different pious organizations and parishioners frequently belonged to several of these at any one time.
* Preached the Christianization of the socio-economic order. Catholic unions were established for workers and farmers; there was a catholic chaplain on each of these trade union locals (Confédération des Travailleurs Catholiques du Canada et l’Union Catholique des Cultivateurs). They studied the social and economic problems in the light of Catholic social teachings. The role of the Church was especially important in the Asbestos strike of 1949. The Church supported and sponsered the establishment of a large number of cooperatives, especially the Caisses Populaires which were all organized on the parish basis and with strong clerical support.
* Wished Christianization through the mass-media. Several Catholic newspapers (collectively known as ‘la bonne presse’) were established to combat ‘yellow journalism’. The best known were Le Droit, L’Action Catholique, and Le Devoir. After initially combating strongly cinema, the Church ran a vast network of theatres in Church basements.
While the Church had a good deal of success in integrating the masses, the advent of the Second World War and the modernization of communications (radio, and especially television) opened Quebec increasingly to outside influence, and thus to changes. In any case, the increasing involvement of the Church in all aspects of the life of French Canadians contained the germs of the demise of Church influence: the Church was unable to finance all of these institutions and to provide the personnel to support them. Eventually it was recognized that the State had to take its responsibilities for the well-being of the province. This would be done during the Quiet Revolution.
7. 1960-today: The impact of the Quiet Revolution
The election of the Liberals of Jean Lesage in 1960 unleashed the floodgates of change. This change was so sudden and widespread that it received the name of Quiet Revolution. In this period of modernization of Quebec no institution was to suffer more than the Roman Catholic Church. Values, ideas and institutions from the past were all questioned; these had all been anchored by the Church. Language replaced Faith as the pillar of survival and distinctiveness of Quebec. The State took over schools and hospitals (all were to eventually be deconfessionalised) and churches nearly emptied completely. Within ten years Quebec went from being the province with the highest birthrate in Canada to having the lowest! The society became profoundly secularized and Church influence fell to nearly nothing.
© 1998 Claude Bélanger, Marianopolis College |
