La République contre les Congrégations: Histoire d'une passion française (1899-1914) (review)

Timed to coincide with the centenary of the association laws in France (1901 and 1904), Christian Sorrel's book provides a synthesis of the most recent scholarship on the religious orders and associations which were victimized by these laws. The dates in the book's subtitle are somewhat misleading because Sorrel reaches back to the (radical) "republican program" of the French Revolution in offering a fairly substantial overview of the nineteenth century (sixty-one pages), and forward to later twentieth-century developments which dismantled the anti-congréganiste legislation. There are no scholarly notes in this book, but the bibliography of secondary works is extensive, and Professor Sorrel diligently mentions primary sources throughout his text.

Sorrel divided his book into three parts with two chapters each, and decided to follow the tradition of the French state and French society in using the term congrégations to mean both the religious orders with their solemn vows and the religious associations with their "simple" vows. Part One of the book focuses on the congrégations before the passage of the first association law, with the first chapter surveying the revival of the congrégations from 1800 to 1880, when they were generally accepted and prosperous, and the second chapter covering 1880-1900, when the republicans captured control of the state and started attacking the congregations with the laic laws. These chapters assess the congregations' resources and apostolic commitments, and explore the oftentimes creative strategies for dealing with the new assaults. Anticlericalism provided the sole possible political cement for the fissiparous French Left, and the congregations were an easy target. Part Two traces the making of the association laws and their gradual implementation. Here Sorrel privileges the many arguments of the day. Part Three explores the response of the congréganistes to the brutal new laws. Ultimately deprived of their property and sources of sustenance, the majority desperately sought means to remain in France and continue their apostolate (les eouvres)—almost always at the cost of submitting to laicization; others (the minority) became part of the "diasporas"—a fascinating episode, told well, with excellent attention to the issue of geographical considerations and varying local conditions. Either strategy, however, left most of these men and women with very precarious, difficult, and disappointing lives. But the ten-year transition period for the elimination of all congregations was just ending when World War I erupted, and with that, France announced that it had "need of all her sons and daughters." Thereafter, there were other "keys to the return," and the congréganistes gradually resumed their activities in France. With official recognition of the Jesuits in France in 2001, the process came full circle.

It would be impossible to write this book without the bridge of Part Two, but I would have advised a compression of the substantial detail and quotation in this part. The quotes do help support Sorrel's compounded conclusion—that the Third Republic treaded on dangerous ground when it attacked the liberté of some of its citizens in the name of greater liberté for the rest, and that this provides a cautionary tale for "a democratic state faced with the growth of new religious movements. . ." (p. 223). But less time on legislative details (available elsewhere) and fairly well-known arguments of the opposing factions would have highlighted the main project better and allowed for a sharpening of the context for the attacks—something Sorrel is eminently equipped to offer. Church-State relations in the Second Empire needed more complexity, and some attention might have been given to issues like the triumph of ultramontanism, the cultural nature of the struggle with the Church (including Catholic anti-republicanism), and the charge that it...