Action Franciaise

[Doom]

I am currently reading “Between Rome and Rebellion: A History of Catholic Traditionalism Especially in France” by Yves Chiron and he talks about something called “Action Francaise” which was eventually suppressed by Pope Pius XI. He makes the point that the members of this group were really stubborn, between 1927 and 1940 127 members of the group died without the Last Rites or a funeral Mass because even near death they were unwilling to dissociate with the group.

He says that it had long been assumed that the integrists (early Traditionalists) and Action francaise were essentially the same people. Since he makes a point of saying a connection has always been assumed, I’m guessing he is probably going to question the assumption.



What he does not explain is what exactly Action francaise was, why it was controversial or why it was suppressed by the Pope.

[zeno]

I have never heard of this but it piques my interest.

[Doom]

I am less than 10% into it but find it enlightening. He starts but saying that most people think Traditionalism originated as a reaction against the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, but it goes back well over a century before that.

He then distinguishes several strains within the Traditionalist movement, some say they have no problem with the New Mass but simply prefer the older Mass. Then some say the New Mass is valid but the old Mass is in some sense or some way superior. Then there are those who deny the New Mass is even valid at all. Of course, in my encounters with self described Traditionalists online, I only recognized those different factions.

[Doom]

Perhaps this question is far too technical

[zeno]

I am less than 10% into it but find it enlightening. He starts but saying that most people think Traditionalism originated as a reaction against the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, but it goes back well over a century before that.

He then distinguishes several strains within the Traditionalist movement, some say they have no problem with the New Mass but simply prefer the older Mass. Then some say the New Mass is valid but the old Mass is in some sense or some way superior. Then there are those who deny the New Mass is even valid at all. Of course, in my encounters with self described Traditionalists online, I only recognized those different factions.

This makes sense of what I picked up on when I was in France. The traditionalist movement there seemed somehow more organic than it is here in the US. I don't know if that is a good way to express it but I think that is what you are saying.

[Doom]

It originated as the Catholic Counter-Revolution, as distinguished from the political counter-revolution after the French Revolution. He makes the point that after the French Church was restricted and limited by the Concordat of 1801, French Catholicism made a historic turn towards Rome. Remember, in the 17th-18th centuries, the French Church, and most Churches in most of Catholic Europe, were emphasizing their independence from Rome with the so-called Gallican Articles of 1682. But after the Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the imprisonment by Napoleon of Pope Piux VII, there was a new emphasis on fanatical devotion to the Pope, which resulted in Vatican I and the definition of Papal Infallibility.

The Pope was relied on as an enemy of the state, and monarchism, opposition to democracy, and liberalism became characteristic of European Catholicism, especially in France. The Catholic opposition to democracy led to Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, and, most shamefully, the collaborationist Vichy Regime during WWII.

So, Traditionalism's modern emphasis on anti-democracy, monarchism, conspiratorial theories about Freemasonry and the Illuminati, and yes antisemitism, all have their roots in the mid to late 19th century in France.

He distinguishes the Integrists, Action Francaise, and Febrainism as three distinct but related things connected to what we today call "Traditionalism"

The author is a self-described Traditionalist, but he is not an uncritical one, he is willing to admit the severe faults and historical sins of the movement,

[zeno]

Interesting.

[Doom]

With some oversimplification, since the French Revolution, the Church has been divided between two poles.

The Traditionalists, following Pius VII, who condemned the Civil Constitution on the Clergy, and then Gregory VI and Pius IX, who made general condemnations of liberalism and progress, completely rejected the Revolution and its spirit of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity" up until after WWII, rejected democracy and demanded a restoration of the monarchy as the only 'true" Catholic form of government.

The reason that France fell as quickly as it did to Hitler in 1940 is not that the French were outmanned or outgunned the French had more guns and tanks than the Germans and could have put up a nasty fight, even if they eventually lost it might have taken at least a couple years and considerably weakened Germany in the process. France didn't fight because they lacked the will to fight, and part of the reason they lacked the will to fight was the Catholic right didn't believe modern liberal democratic France was worth defending. Some even said that France was wicked and sinful and that falling to the Nazis would be a just punishment of France by God. And some Traditionalists were even somewhat sympathetic to Nazism and to Italian Fascism because they considered them a bulwark against the much greater threat of communism.

The liberals thought that the Church could find some way to accommodate the principles of the Revolution and modern society as a whole.

There is a considerable spectrum between these two extremes. Certainly, not all modern Traditionalists in France are monarchists; some are Gaullists or advocates of something like the Christian Democracy movement that exists in Germany, Italy, and other places in Europe.

There is a certain truth to the claim that the point of Vatican II was to find a path of accommodation to the modern world but it did so without fully endorsing the liberal view or fully rejecting the Traditionalist view.

This divide between the Traditionalists and the liberals that developed in France after Napoleon eventually spread throughout the whole Western Church, although it is safe that many or most advocates of either view who live outside France don't completely understand the whole controversy is really about.