Histoire des curés (review)

The four authors of this work have set themselves a formidable task. Drawing on a vast body of scholarship, most of it published in the last thirty years, they describe and analyze the history of the Roman Catholic Church from the fourth century until the present, focusing, as much as possible, on the perspective of the parish priest, the person placed in charge of the "care of souls" in a specific territorial space within a diocese.

Catherine Vincent is the author of the introduction and the first section, which in a little over a hundred pages covers the period from the fourth century until the fourteenth. It is a remarkable achievement. Vincent draws on a wide range of studies, most of them in French but including a respectable number of works in Italian and English as well. She emphasizes that our knowledge is still fragmentary and that much of the written record reflects the ideal and not the reality of parish organization and priestly conduct.

Adapted from the structures of the Roman Empire, the organization of the Church into dioceses and parishes was the distinct contribution of the church based in Rome. It was not present in the Eastern Church or in Celtic Christianity, which until the Middle Ages was essentially autonomous. The establishment of the parish system was a process of centuries, articulated by Carolingian and Gregorian reformers but not firmly in place until the thirteenth century.

The second section, on the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, is the work of Nicole Lemaitre. A central theme is that from the perspective of the parish clergy, the period reflects two contrasting notions of the nature of the Church, both of which had had their advocates in the previous millennium. The reformers, at least those of the mainline Reformation, rejected the notion of hierarchical authority within the clergy and the special calling of the clergy, living within communities but set apart from them, to embody spiritual and moral perfection. Those who adhered to Roman authority were equally committed to reform, but only within the traditional structures of authority. The Council of Trent, Lemaitre argues, was a genuine work of reformation, addressing the concerns of the past and resolving many of them. Especially crucial for the future, she demonstrates, was the decision to create seminaries in which the clergy would receive an education as little concerned with the material, secular world as possible.

The third section, on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is by the noted scholar Michel Lagrée. It is difficult to summarize. Lagrée notes that despite their training, many clergy, at least in France and Italy, were deeply involved in the social and intellectual transformation that was the Enlightenment. The French Revolution thus presented a tragic dilemma, because so many priests, some of them influenced by the pervasive movement of Jansenism, welcomed it as a divinely sanctioned opportunity to transform both Church and state. The chapters on the nineteenth century are somewhat fragmentary, perhaps because Lagrée attempts to cover too many topics and as a result loses sight of the central theme of the evolution of the parish clergy.

The final section, on the Church since World War I, is the work of Luc Perrin. It is the least satisfactory part of the book, but then recent developments, especially since Vatican Council II, are the least amenable to historical analysis. Perrin emphasizes the enormous impact of the World War I on the clergy—fourteen per cent of Frenchmen killed in the war were priests, monks, or seminarians. The role of the Church in occupied Europe in World War II is treated without much depth or analysis, although it is still a topic of enormous controversy. The section on Vatican II is fuller and more balanced, especially concerning its impact on the...