Welcome To The World War I History Podcast produced by the MacArthur Memorial we invite you to follow us on Twitter at MacArthur 1880 or find the general Douglas MacArthur Memorial on Facebook this podcast was sponsored by the Ernst and Gertrude Tio charitable Foundation when World War I began in
1914 Catholic priests were virtual parayas in France this was the result of a trend towards antic clericalism that began with the French Revolution and continued in fits and starts into the 20th century prior to World War I to further eliminate perceived privilege France’s thirdd Republic made priests eligible for military service ironically
Though this attempt to erase them as a distinct social class provided French priests the opportunity to be seen as Patriots tens of thousands of priests served in the French army during World War I alongside nearly two third of France’s male population and today we’re going to explore this novel chapter in
World War I history and we are joined by Dr Anita May author of patriot priests French Catholic clergy and national identity in World War I welcome Dr May oh thanks I’m glad to be here to start off with could you explain anti clericalism and can you explain the difference between us and French
Concepts of separation of church and state yes well if you look up the definition of antic clericalism in encyclopedia branica for example it says its opposition to the clergy for its real or alleged influence in political and social Affairs for its doctrin arism and for its privileges or property or
For any other reason but I would like to explain to your audience that this just touches the sentiment behind it it first of all back in the 18th century when anti clericalism was first sort of spread in France one of its proponents was Vol and he said a CR Lam in
Reference to the Catholic church and it it’s frush the evil one interesting that he uses the word evil in in that context but in any event and then in the third Republic when the Republicans who favored Republican government got control of the government they said that
They thought of the clergy as a black robed Army in the service of a foreign power they meant Rome of course and so I think that to understand anti-clericalism and the the place of the priest by the beginning of the war you have to understand that the
Invective was just about as powerful as contemporary political infective is and some of the sentiment behind it was similar so the Catholic church was the enemy as far as the third Republic was concerned and they wanted to limit it its influence so that’s anti clericalism you know it comes from the experience of
Course of f history in the old monarchy the uh church and state were completely entwined probably everybody’s heard of cardinal gisho he was the prime minister so to speak of uh the Monarch for a little while and he was at a cardinal in the Catholic church so you can see that that
Was totally entwined and uh the church supported the government and the government supported the church and that’s not happened in American history particularly since we had the revolution in the Constitution it might have been true in early days of Massachusetts its where there was an intertwining of church and state but not
In America as it was founded by the Constitution and so it’s really difficult for us to understand the bitterness behind this anti-clericalism that existed but in France antic clericalism believes that they want to protect the individual from the claims of religion which are seen as inhibiting
A citizen from Free Will and burden ing him with superstitious unscientific beliefs while in America our concept is based on the idea of keeping all churches free from State control and preventing the state from establishing one religious denomination is the state religion so it’s a completely different
Kind of almost unemotional idea that we have and so it’s very difficult to understand this especially this time in history history when the French were passing these laws that were so antagonistic to the Catholic church it’s such a fascinating distinction thanks for laying that out for us now can you
Set the stage for us can you outline the pre-war relationship between the Catholic church and the third Republic you you’ve already touched on this a little bit but just in a little more detail and tell us how this impacts the status of French priests in society the Third Republic was established after the
Defeat of Louis Napoleon who had established a Second Empire it was called and he was the emperor and fr after the French Revolution it’s a little complicated for anybody who doesn’t understand France the bourbon monarchy was restored for a time and they there was another Revolution and
There was an orleanist monarchy and then there was for a short period of time the second Republic the First Republic was during the French Revolution the second Republic was in 1848 but Lou Napoleon came to power in 1852 and established what he called the Second Empire the first empire being the
Empire of Napoleon bonapart who was his uncle and in all of this transition every time that a monarchy or in terms of the empire was it was in place the church was granted more freedom and more Liberty never did they restore the Privileges and the property that were
Taken away in the French Revolution French Revolution confiscated Church property and and actually made clergy marry if they were going to stay in France and take a an oath to the French Revolution that that never happened again in that profound way and when Napoleon came into Power he established
A a concordat with the Pope in 1901 which is also extremely peculiar to um Americans because in this concordat he recognized the Catholic religion as the religion of the majority of the French people but what he did was he set up the clergy of all denominations including Protestants and Jews as civil servants
And so there was a Ministry of worship that administered the the the uh appointments of the leaders of the churches the for instance the government would propose several people to the pope to become bishop and then the pope was free to choose among those three and there were extensive examinations uh as
If you know it was some kind of U they expected them to be some kind of spies into their background Etc before they could be approved by the state of France and then given over to the pop hope and it’s very interesting then that both the Ministers of the Catholic church and
Protestant and and Jewish were all civil servants civil servants and the church was supported by public funds so all the buildings Etc were were supported by public funds it was not necessary to raise money to support the churches or the salaries of the incumbent priests or Bishops but what happened because of the
Burgeoning anti-clericalism in the third Republic the privileges so to speak that were given to the clergy and the Catholic church under the Second Empire which was a much greater control in education primarily that and giving the local clergy importance in secular Affairs in various provinces and towns
They wanted to take all of that away and because the Catholic Church seemed to want to restore the monarchy that was the big animosity at that time there were a number of Bishops who’ be documented as supporting the return of the bourbon monarchy and in the opening
Days of the third Republic the Chamber of deputies was controlled by a royalist party so it looked like it could be possible but the people in France were really not ready for that and there were more people who wanted Republican government than than not but when the
Republicans got in charge they were so paranoid I have to say about the power of the Catholic church that they wanted to restrict their power and they particularly were interested in education so they they started uh they didn’t have at this time public schools for uh the primary grades they were
Mostly in the hands of nuns and Priests and uh they that all changed that was one of the primary things and then they took away power to give Advanced degrees as well and because they felt that education was the primary way in which the church was influencing people they
Were particularly afraid of religious orders and I would have to say they were most afraid of the Jesuits probably but they exiled they passed a law to Exile well nobody could be a religious order and stay in France you couldn’t live communally in France so many of the
Religious orders set up houses in Belgium and in England and of course they had missions so a lot of them were in South America and it they weren’t in France anymore you could not be in France and be in the religious order after they passed these laws and then of
Course they decided that one of the things that attracted men to the priesthood was that they didn’t have to serve in the military so that’s when they decided to to end the exemption of the clergy from Mil military service so they did that in 1885 I believe but at that time they
Said that if they trained they drafted people kind of initially for training and uh after their period of training if war broke out they said that they could choose a non-combat position after 1905 when they separated church and state they made a new law about military service and they said that nobody
Inducted after 1905 could choose a non- combat position so that’s why in the end there were 33,000 Catholic priests and seminarians in the military and about half of them were in combat and the others a lot of them were nurses and stretcher bearers so they were in non-combat positions but they were
Basically especially the stretcher bearers were at the front I have this what I consider one of of the most descriptive quotes of how the priests were treated at the beginning of the war just their position in frch society and I’d like to just read this because it’s
One of my favorite descriptions of how they felt because this is you can see this in the letters when when where breaks out how how they feel about their positions and in 1892 a journalist wrote in uh one of the largest Publications in France about the positions of the priest
He he said that they were banished from the school excluded from the committee directing official Charities regarded with malicious distress or jealous hatred by the mayor and the school Master they were kept at arms length as a compromising neighbor by all the minor officials employed by the commune or the
State they were spied on by the inkeeper exposed to the anonymous denunciations of the local newspaper the priest Spends His morning reciting prayers to empty pews and his afternoons planting cabbages and pruning roses that’s the way they felt and that that’s the experience and that’s all of the the
Things in sort of graphic detail that they used to be involved in but they couldn’t be involved in anymore and then they also took away the churches you they would call it control over uh marriage you had to be married married by Civil Authorities you couldn’t be
Married uh the other way and your birth and death had to be registered civil it wasn’t sufficient that it would be registered by the Catholic church so that that just kind of I think it’s more graphic than anything I’ve said to listen to that little quote in the
Newspaper for sure so when the French army mobilizes in 1914 how do the priests respond well that’s the amazing thing so this is how they’re treated right this is their Exiles many of them are that that had their initial training in France are in religious orders and they’re exiled
There’s some place they Belgium England whatever they they were called back and they came in some ways if you look at the statistics there’s some possibility of miscalculation about people coming from the missions in South America but but there’s no miscalculation about them coming from Exile in in in Europe
Belgium and England and and so why did come well they came because actually they were Frenchmen and regardless of what the third Republic thought of them they loved their country and they were appalled to have it invaded by the Germans and they wanted to prove that they were patriotic as well they also
Had been influenced by the accusations of the time that religion was a feminizing thing and they hoped to prove otherwise they they used to tease them that they were walking around in scirt so it must be girls and one of the men who had Brothers in the military wrote
That he wanted to be like the brothers like his brothers and joined the military so all those reasons made them come back but but they’re Frenchmen and Germany invaded France a big deal so that’s why they came and it it was really uh phenomenon when you think
About it but it worked to the disadvantage like you said in your introduction because this put all of those priest into to these positions with the 8 million men that the French drafted you know the French drafted people in classes and so they drafted men who were up to 40 years old that’s
How they got 8 million people in the military and so they didn’t have too much respect for age either so in terms of how many res served as chaplain in the whole War only 1,500 French free Serv served as chaplain and to compare that the British
Had one chaplain for every 4,000 men and the Canadians had one chaplain for every 1,000 men big difference yeah right the priests that were in combat and in nursing situations or out they were able to act as priest when their commanding officers kind of looked the other way
When they had the time when they they were there even though they weren’t officially chaplain they were they were there you’ve explained that some of them are chaplain um they’re providing spiritual comfort they’re helping with morale some of them are performing kind of medical support roles they’re also as
You’ve mentioned combatants they’re with other French soldiers who are going to be in combat they’re right beside them as fellow combatants how does the Catholic Church view this kind of military service for them and did the priests struggle with being combatants oh yeah well the Bishops were
Appalled by the first law ending the clerical exemption in 1889 but When The War Began they rallied to the French cause Cardinal AMT who was the Archbishop of Paris at the time he said that he wanted the Catholics to be the first to respond to the call for Union
Sakre and so they responded just loyally I would have to say and even though canon law actually prohibit clergy from engaging in combat but even the Vatican granted a special dispensation for priests who were conscripted by their government to be in combat so they were completely Cooperative but then the
Other thing about it was that they quickly saw it as a way to prove their loyalty to France which was much Meed by the third Republic you remember that I said that they were a black robed Army in the service of a foreign power and that’s a pretty heavy accusation so they
They wanted to prove that that they were loyal to their country and so they thought that this was a really excellent proof to have the priests serve in the armed forces you profile a number of priests in your book could you share a few of their stories yes and that
Answers your question about how they reacted to combat I’ve got a number of priests that I can talk about I have to say my favorite and one of the most articulate of the priests is a a Jesuit who became very famous in later Life as a he a
Paleontologist and he he’s also a philosopher and his name is Pierre tar des shardan and he came from a noble family in Claremont Pand and and they had a tradition of course of military service and it was he who wanted to be like his brothers because his brothers
Were all in the military they had six Sons they were all in the military and uh one of them by the time he was called up had just been killed and so he’s the one that said he wanted to be like the others and he wanted to share in this
Experience and St for US soldier priests war was a baptism in to reality and that’s one of the things he thought about it and but he was he was hopeful that by that service he would have some influence in with his fellow troops and when he first went into the war he
Thought that was a distinct possibility after a while he began to believe that he wasn’t having very much influence but he stayed but you know he had purposely chosen because he was in the class before 1905 a non combat position and I think that one of the things that was
Most astonishing to me is what he wrote in February of 1917 to his cousin who’s got most of of what I know about him he published in in the war was published in letters to his cousin margarite and he said I assure you that i’ had a thousand times rather
Be throwing grenades or handling a machine gun than be super numerated as I am now what I’m going to say may not be very Orthodox and yet I believe there’s a core of Truth in it I feel that doing so I would be more a priest isn’t a
Priest a man who has to Bear the burden of life in all its forms and shows by his own life how human work and love of God can be combined I’d be interested to know how many of us Soldier priests think the same I don’t know whether I
Should react against this tendency but I feel feel that I’m not being honest with myself unless I say what I think if I said anything else I’d be doing violence to my own self fundamentally however since we seem to be approaching the end of the war it is really an academic
Question but if I had to start again I wouldn’t take the line I did in 1914 of choosing a non-combat position I think that was one of the most startling Revelations that I ran into in studying the reactions of these priests the other thing was later on he described this
Which is on the lips of many soldiers priests and nons soldiers he said in later in uh 1917 he wrote his cousin again and he said that he was working on a book which he was calling Nostalgia for the front and he explained that he wanted to describe the feeling and
Provide some reason for it he wrote the reasons I believe we’ come down to this the front cannot but attract us because it is in one way the extreme boundary between what one is already aware of and what is still in the process of formation not only does one see there
Things that you experienced nowhere else but one also sees emerge from within one an underlying stream of clarity energy and freedom that is to be found hardly anywhere else in ordinary life and the new form that the soul then takes on is that of the individual living the Quasi
Collective life of all men fulfilling a function for far higher than that of the individual and becoming fully conscious of this new state it goes without saying that at the front you no longer look on things in the same way as you do in the
Rear if you did the signs you see in the life you lead would be more than you could bear the exaltation is accompanied by a certain pain nevertheless it is indeed an exaltation and that’s why one likes the front in spite of everything and misses it and he is not the only one
That said things like that which is really fascinating definitely do you have any other stories well when the priest got into the war they were acutely aware that people didn’t like them and so any example of acceptance was very moving for them and at the beginning of the war
I guess because Napoleon was right that France is a Catholic country whether the Republicans liked it or not people flooded to the churches and when the priests were going off to war they were they were given accolades U there was one group of franciscans who returned on
A train and and they said they were met at the station with praise and accolades by the crowd here come the priests so they were kind of amazed but it was still difficult for for them to go into the barracks and especially for some of the the young seminarians and I think
They were very very unsure of themselves and um this one 23-year-old seminarian whose name is Bernard laar was pretty gu uncertain and uh but he felt better after a while in barracks and he wrote to his cousin that she was right to believe that he could have some
Influence over the other soldiers said you cannot imagine but yes it is you who told me so on Sunday how much good one can accomplish with the soldiers this daily contact with the men places us in a position to show them very well moreover they are often simple and
Trusting especially in the regiments he believed that a discreet apostolate would be the most most effective to lead men back to the faith he had great confidence in his beliefs and thought that his best preaching would be his silent example of faith and he was an extremely Brave Young Soldier and his
Fate was pretty awful but at first he was also extremely proud to be in the military because his father had been in the military and he wrote his father about his his service but then he he wrote another letter just to show you how conflicted these young men can be he
Wrote another letter to again to his female cousin the war we are going to make if you knew the meter we have learned whose tiniest details they have taught us this will be offensive War incessant attack on entrenched positions attack day and night and always with
Bayonets what will be hard finally is to jump into one trench then another to find men who will cry out perhaps on their knees comrades comrades and then to have the instruction the order the duty to kill them all the same I am going to say some horrible things if I
Continue and moreover that is that I have some buddies who have done this already I do not fear death but if it is necessary to get into hand-to-hand fighting how will I close my eyes without seeing before me their mother their wife their children how will I
Repeat to the Divine model the words I have often said what would you have done Jesus in these circumstances so you can see that they are can be really torn up at the same time as that they’re glad to be defending their country so it it’s just really ve very moving the the
Experience I think it is very moving now for fraternity is a major part of French national identity and during the war we already mentioned that about 2third of French men are mobilized and as you’ve laid out there are a lot of French priests sharing the hardships and daily
Lives of of these men does this contact ultimately undermine anti-clericalism in the third Republic well it seems to in a number of instances after the war there were attempts by the Republican government to re Exile the the religious orders and do various things to re re enforce the
Anti-clerical laws and when they were put in place the interesting part about that it is when they were put in place in the at the end of the 19th century even the Catholics didn’t protest very much but after the war not only did the Catholics protest but a lot of other
People joined them in this protest and then finally the Prime Minister came to power millerand who said you know how can we send back into Exile these people who came here to fight for us in the war how can we do this but further than that the priest had become an integral part
Of of of a lot of the lives not only of the priests but of their relatives because one of the things that uh that they did was they buried men in marked Graves there was one priest in particular a Leonard who later became the Archbishop of Leo he made it his
Mission to go and bury the dead and Mark Graves and identify the dead and write to their relatives and so they were integral in the kind of memory that not only the soldiers had but of the uh of the the relatives and parents one of the
Things I I’ve read was by a um a man who studied U what happen to uh veterans after the war and uh one one of the interesting things that he says is the most long lasting feeling that gave meaning to the war experience for the veterans was was the experience of
Brotherhood it was not patriotism that They Carried with them into the post-war period but this feeling of uh Brotherhood that they adapted at the front and and one of the things that was true in that you could see in all the letters and Memoirs was that the priest
At the front whether he was in combat or not was very supportive of his fellow soldiers and in some way always made meaning of the war you know of course in in relig in the Christian religion suffering is equated with Jesus and so it’s this kind of idea that they would
Impart to the soldiers that suffering was a valid uh experience um gave to a number of them anyway a sense of of meaning and it’s the only these are the only things that I ever read about World War I and terms of really articulate explanation um as opposed to the British
Poets and some of their accounts of the war is that it comes out in experience that this war is meaningless but the these priests had this ability to to impart meaning by their definition of the value of sacrifice and Brotherhood that they felt for each other so there’s
A lot of support after the war for former priests and uh former priests who had been priests who had formerly been at the front and a number of them there’s a man who did a study of how many of them subsequently became Bishops and uh a number of them did a good
Number of them did actually and and when they did the the people who served with them came out to congratulate them and so you had the sense that even though many of them were not regular attenders of church services that they had this fondness for the clergy which made it
Impossible for the French government to enact reenact or reinforce I should say the the secular laws and so it was it was was a big it was a big deal but they they did they did earn uh respect and it filtered into the postwar period for for
Many of them you don’t you don’t really change after an experience like that your attitude towards your fellow soldiers in 1920 Pope Benedict the 15 canonized Joan of Arc it’s the beginning of a period of improvement in the relationship between France and the Catholic Church does this happen without
The service of French priests in World War I well I don’t think so you know because as I said initially the the Republicans wanted to reinstate they they call their anti-clerical law sacran and so uh one of the interesting things was they they had a number of
Negotiations and and that was in the negotiations that I quoted the mill around and what he said about he couldn’t see sending away the The Men Who had come to France to uh be a part of uh the the war effort and then to send them into Exile because they’re
Members of religious orders so in 1920s although there were was a number of of um negotiations between the Vatican and Bishops and the church and in the negotiations with the men in the chamber of deputies finally the Archbishop of Paris who is still Cardinal on that uh agreed to uh compromise language that
That although those anti-clerical laws would stay on the book the new government would understand that as they put it secularization must be harmonized with the Liberties and the rights of all citizens whatever their religious views and in this way religious peace will be assured to the country and then Benedict
The 15th who uh negotiated with the government then settled some of the disputes that previously had occurred between the Vatican and the state and so the um the Canon station of Jonah bar was kind of symbolic of the growing sentiment of of peace between the church and the third Republic any final
Thoughts on this topic it it really is difficult for for an American to understand I have to say because we just don’t have this same experience at all but one of the things that was was clear is that you can’t expect people to go through a war without being changed by
It and if it’s to produce despair as it was for many people then that’s awful but but I think the participation of the priests in their attitudes help a number of people not Despair and and and that was a a really important thing and it
Also seems to me that it it was a way of bringing a kind of a Reconciliation that wouldn’t have been possible without it between the Catholic church and and the government of France and I think that was really important it was also important that the church that the the
Priests recognized and they said this over and over again themselves that even if they couldn’t get men back into the church they could still accept them as brothers and that was that was a big thing on both sides that they came to regard each other as fellow human beings
Fellow sufferers and fellow survivors and um I think that’s that’s a a wonderful thing I have to say that you know especially in terms of Brotherhood a number of my friends that were soldiers and they identified with with my priest a great deal in their experience of service and I was
Gratified hearing what they thought of the book so well it was a very interesting work and I really appreciate you joining us today to share your research with us thank you thank you for listening if you have questions suggestions or comments we want to hear from you you can find us on
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