We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Since the English conquest, the Quebec Roman Catholic Church has been the most important single agency for the defense and perpetuation of the French-Canadian heritage in North America. Although its commanding position is unchallenged, the Church has long shared its authority with elites in the political and economical spheres. These other elites, however, have by no means competed with the Church. Indeed, interchange and cooperation among elites have been characteristic of French-Canadian society. Viewed as essential to cultural survival, this close unity among elites has encouraged the retention of an ordered, hierarchical social structure with many pre-industrial features.
* This article is based on research accomplished in Canada in 1955–56 on a grant from the Duke University Commonwealth-Studies Center. The author gratefully acknowledges this assistance, as well as the aid and kindness rendered him in Canada.
1 These subjects are rapidly gaining in popularity at present. See Falardeau, J. C., ed., Essais sur le Québec contemporain (Quebec, 1953)Google Scholar; hereafter cited as Essais. See especially the following: Lortie, Léon, “Le système scolaire,” pp. 169–186Google Scholar; Tremblay, Arthur, “Commentaires,” on the above article, pp. 187–192Google Scholar; and Tremblay, Maurice, “Orientations de la pensée sociale,” pp. 193–208Google Scholar.
2 A 1955 survey showed that even within the Christian trade-union movement eleven chaplains had rural backgrounds, seven were from small towns, and only six were from the city. Dion, Abbé Gérard, Ad Usum Sacerdotum, X (03–05, 1955), 128–129Google Scholar.
3 Except the 17 % of the total gainfully employed population which today earns its livelihood from agriculture. Falardeau, Jean C., “The Changing Social Structures,” Essais, p. 107. This is the 1951 figure; the percentage probably decreases each yearGoogle Scholar.
4 The Quebec clergy strongly supported the provincial government's colonization program of the 1930's. The government sought to open up new farming areas to cultivation and offered financial aid to colonists. The program was not successful in terms of the money and effort expended.
5 For discussions of these early Canadian groups dealing with labor and social questions see: Richard, J. D., , S. J., “L'enseignement social dans la G.T.G.C,” Relations, VI (06, 1941), 160–161Google Scholar; Hudon, L., , S.J., Le cercle ouvrier (Montreal: ESP, no. 14, 1913)Google Scholar; and Tremblay, Maurice and Faucher, Albert, “L'enseignement des sciences sociales au Canada de langue francçaise,” Royal Commission Studies: A Selection of Essays Prepared for the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Ottawa, 1951), pp. 191–203Google Scholar.
6 The aims of the ESP are set forth in L'Ėcole Sociale Populaire (Montreal: ESP, no. 1, 1911)Google Scholar. The ESP issues a monthly pamphlet which is usually devoted to a single subject by a single author. These pamphlets, issued since 1911, furnish representative source material on Jesuit and other thought in the province. The ESP, the Semaines Sociales, and Relations, a monthly journal, are the principal organs of the Jesuit order in the province. From October, 1936, to December, 1940, the ESP also published a journal devoted to the propagation of corporatist ideas, L'ordre nouveau.
7 For a survey of the thought of the Semaines Sociales, see Sister Agnes, Mary of Rome Gaudreau, The Social Thought of French Canada as Reflected in the Semaine Sociale (Washington, 1949)Google Scholar.
8 The non-parish basis of “Catholic Action” makes it one of the few attempts to find new techniques of religious organization. There is sometimes antagonism between the parish clergy and “Catholic Action” groups. See Hughes, E. G., French Canada in Transition (Chicago, 1943), pp. 102–105Google Scholar; and Falardeau, J. C., “The Parish as an Institutional Type,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XV (08, 1949), 353–367CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 “La province de Québec au moment de la grève,” in La grève de l'amiante, en collaboration, sous la direction Trudeau, de P.E. (Montreal, 1956), p. 20Google Scholar. This book received considerable attention in Quebec. One could almost rank persons and schools on a traditionalist-revisionist continuum according to their degree of opposition to the ideas expressed in it.
10 “Political Trends,” Essais, pp. 162–164.
11 See Wade, Mason, The French Canadians: 1760–1945 (New York, 1955), pp. 862–865Google Scholar; Hughes, , French Canada in Transition, pp. 212–219Google Scholar; Roy, M. J., “The French-English Division of Labor in the Province of Quebec,” unpublished M.A. thesis, McGill University, 1935Google Scholar; and Hughes, E. C. and Margaret, L. McDonald, “French and English in the Economic Structure of Montreal,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, VII (11, 1941), 493–505CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
12 Most French Canadians are “nationalists.” Some, like Henri Bourassa, advocate a broad Canadian nationalism. The extreme nationalists, sometimes called integralists, wished not only to protect the rights of Quebec within Confederation but also had separatist tendencies, although the aim of a French-Canadian state was almost always denied. See Wade, Mason, The French-Canadian Outlook (New York, 1947), pp. 123–126Google Scholar.
13 This movement (the chief organ of the movement was also L'action française) was patterned after the French movement of the same name led by Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras. When the French group was condemned by the Pope in 1927 the Canadian organization's name was changed to L'Action Canadienne-Française. The Canadian movement faded in the 1920's, only to be revived as L'Action Nationale in 1933. See Wade, , The French Canadians, pp. 862–915Google Scholar.
14 Wade, , The French-Canadian Outlook, p. 125Google Scholar.
15 Mason Wade compares French-Canadian society to an iceberg: one-ninth of it—“the elite of priests, lawyers, doctors, scholars”—is “above water” and is most outstanding. The remainder, the submerged mass, counts for very little in public life. The French-Canadian Outlook, pp. 170–171.
16 There is, however, a desire in some quarters of Quebec to avoid the use of English entirely. Archambault, J. P., S.J. long-time head of the ESP, founded the Ligue des Droits de Français in 1913Google Scholar. The Ligue proposed to protect the rights of the French language and “to use French in business relations, even with English firms.”
17 “Non-confessional” organizations are those which do not specifically rest on a religious basis, although they are by no means indifferent to religious questions. A “neutral” organization admits the equality, or irrelevancy, of all religious opinions. “Neutral” organizations are condemned in Roman Catholic theory, but not “non-confessional” ones.
Canon Henri Pichette, General Chaplain of the CCCL, is one of the few priests to refer publicly to the fact that the American hierarchy has encouraged Catholics to join non-confessional unions. In an address to the 1955 CCCL convention, Canon Pichette said that the Quebec hierarchy accepted as justified, outside of Quebec, the desire of unions to unite all workers regardless of race, religion, or politics. The lack of religious and racial uniformity in the rest of North America makes necessary the existence of non-confessional unions, but this justification, he said, does not exist in Quebec. Procès-verbal, Thirty-fourth Annual Convention of the CCCL (1955), p. 307. French-Canadians have observed in conversation that Quebec still retains the hope of remaining an integrally Roman Catholic society, one in which Roman Catholic doctrine permeates all institutions and practices. This goal is unrealistic in the United States and the rest of Canada where Roman Catholics are in the minority. As Quebec is economically integrated into the rest of North America, an integral Catholicism is perhaps unrealistic there also. But this conclusion has not yet been accepted by a majority of the religious leaders of the province.
18 In corporatist terms, the French word profession signifies all those associated in a common enterprise whether as laborers, foremen, office workers, managers, or owners. It is sometimes translated as “vocational group.”
19 Quoted in Bouvier, Emile, , S.J., L'organisation corporative est-elle réalisable au Québec? (Montreal: ISP, no. 478, 1955), p. 23Google Scholar.
20 More recent organizations such as the employers, medical, and bar associations would also be considered pre-corporatist institutions.
21 This program was elaborated by the Comité de défense économique of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste. The report was written by the leading French-Canadian economist of the period, Minville, Esdras: Comment établir l'organisation corporative au Canada (Montreal: ESP, no. 272, 1936)Google Scholar.
22 Ibid., pp. 21–25.
23 Ibid., p. 25.
24 The identification in French Canada of economic liberalism with the English is shown by the following statement of Minville: “Economic liberalism is, one may say, a product of the English spirit, a kind of emanation from Anglo-Saxon Protestantism.” Ibid., p. 4.
25 Ibid., pp. 27–30.
26 ESP titles dealing with corporatism include the following: Minville, Comment établir l'organisation corporative au Canada (no. 272); Richard Arès, S.J., Catéchisme de l'organisation corporative (nos. 289–290); Maxmilien Caron, La corporation professionelle (no. 306); F. A. Angers et al., Vers un ordre nouveau par l'organisation corporative (no. 312); Maxmilien Caron, L'organisation corporative au service de la démocratie (no. 347); Oliveira Salazar, L'organisation corporative portugaise (no. 355); J. P. Archambault, S.J., Pour un ordre meilleur (nos. 360–361); Jean Daujat, Nationalisation et organisation corporative (no. 395) and Dirigisme et corporatisme (no. 407); André Derco, L'organisation démocratique de la vie sociale (no. 411); Marcel Clément, L'organisation professionelle (no. 431); Richard Arés, S.J., Capitalisme, syndicalisme et organisation professionnelle (no. 463); and Emile Bouvier, S.J., L'organisation corporative est-elle realisable au Québec? (no. 478).
27 Elbow, Matthew H., French Corporative Theory, 1789–1948 (New York, 1953), p. 200Google Scholar.
28 Note in particular the following publications of the ESP: Ad. Malo O.P.M., La vérité sur L'Espagne (no. 278); ESP, Le vendredi saint de l'église d' Espagne (no. 283); Joseph Ledit, S.J., L'Espagne au sortir de la guerre (no. 309); ESP, La réconstruction de la France (no. 325); ESP, La restauration de la famille française (no. 333); Oliveira Salazar, L'organisation corporative portugaise (no. 355); Salazar and Cardinal Carejeira, L'état portugais (no. 396); ESP, Le code du travail en Espagne (no. 421); and Salazar, Montémoignage et mes positions (no. 435). The last three publications were issued after 1945 when state corporatism was generally held in disrepute.
29 See Wade, , The French Canadians, p. 956Google Scholar; also Ryerson, Stanley B., French Canada: a Study in Canadian Democracy (New York, 1943), p. 187Google Scholar. As a note of caution, Ryerson was National Educational Director of the Labor Progressive party (communist) in 1943.
30 Op. cit., p. 11.
31 This glorification of the rural life continues even today. Note especially, La vie rurale, Semaine Sociale, 1947 (Montreal: ESP, 1947)Google Scholar; and the articles by Dugré, Alexandra, , S.J., in Relations culminating with “La terre qui sauve,” no. 150 (06, 1953), pp. 155–157Google Scholar.
32 The ESP continues to propagate corporatist doctrines. In a recent pamphlet Bouvier, Emile, , S.J., states that Quebec has many pre-corporate institutions which merely need “progressive coordination,” op. cit., p. 2Google Scholar. Examining the professional associations of the province of Quebec in the light of publications of the ESP, Pierre Harvey (of the faculty of the Ėcole des Hautes Etudes Commercial de Montréal) concluded, however, that only the parity committees should qualify as pre-corporatist institutions. “Les corporations professionnelles de Quebec,” Actualité économique, XXIX (10–12, 1953), 411,Google Scholar ff, and XXX (April–June, 1954), 40–64.
33 For a critique of the Quebec conception of democracy by a writer close to the CCCL, see Trudeau, P. E., “Some Obstacles to Democracy in Quebec,” The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXIV (08, 1958), 297–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
34 “Invitation à repenser le syndicalisme catholique,” Ad Usum Sacerdotum, X (10, 1954), 3Google Scholar.
35 See Tremblay and Faucher, op. cit.
36 For Father Lévesque's views on methodology, see “Principles and Facts in the Teaching of Social Sciences,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XIII (11, 1947), 501–506Google Scholar.
37 Father Lévesque himself retired as Dean in 1954, although he still lectures at Laval. His retirement is said to have improved relations between Laval University and the Duplessis government.
38 Father Lévesque's views were expressed in articles in Ensemble, the organ of the Quebec General Council of Cooperatives, in Decembr 1945, and April, 1946, and in an interview, January 30, 1956. The author also interviewed several individuals connected with the ESP, including its first director and longtime president, Father J. P. Archambault, S.J., December 13, 1955, and Father Emile Bouvier, S.J., November 28, 1955, who has often defended the ESP in his writings and actions.
39 Although supposedly an internal matter of the Church, this dispute, like most religious disputes in Quebec, quickly acquired public interest. Two reliable popular accounts of Father Levesque's troubles with political and ecclesiastical authorities are: Fraser, Blair, “The Fight Over Father Lévesque,” Maclean's Magazine, LXIII (07 01, 1950), 5, 52–54Google Scholar; and Belliveau, J. E., “Crusader in Canada,” The Commonweal, LV (03 14, 1952), 559–560Google Scholar.
40 Neutralité, non-confessionalité et l'Ėcole Sociale Populaire (Montreal, 1946)Google Scholar. This pamphlet is also a good general review of the issues involved in the dispute.
41 This Commission, headed by Governor-General Vincent Massey, was a general inquiry into the contemporary state of Canadian culture.
42 In the form of a letter from Msgr. Carlo Grano, Papal Secretary, reprinted in Ad Usum Sacerdotum, VII (November, 1951), 26–27.
43 His views were set forth in a paper delivered at the Second Annual Conference of the Canadian Institute of Public Affairs, Sainte-Adéle, September 22, 1955, and entitled “Le chevauchement des cultures.”
44 Joint Pastoral Letter of Their Excellencies the Archbishops and Bishops of the Civil Province of Quebec, The Problem of the Worker in the Light of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Montreal: ISP, nos. 433–434A, 1950)Google Scholar, authorized translation.
45 Cousineau, Jacques, , S.J., “Commentaires sur les orientations de la pensée sociale,” Essais, pp. 209–211Google Scholar.
46 Joint Pastoral Letter, pp. 8–9, 14, 15–23, 24, 27, 30.
47 The Letter was criticized, although of course not publicly, on the grounds that it did not completely clarify the position of co-determination in Roman Catholic theory. Also, soon after the Letter was issued, the Holy See restated more precisely the Church's attitude toward co-determination. The result was that many people in the province, especially those displeased by the document in the first place, used the supposed ambiguity concerning co-determination as a reason for ignoring the Letter.
48 The authoritative French text merely uses the term “institution corporative.” Lettre pastorale collective de Leurs Excellences nosseigneurs les Archevêques et Evêques de la province civile de Québec, Le probléme ouvrier en regard de la doctrine sociale de l'église (Montreal: ISP, nos. 433–434, 1950), p. 28Google Scholar.
49 English text, op. cit., p. 31, 31–32.
50 An editorial in Ad Usum Sacerdotum, V (04, 1950), 74Google Scholar, charged that the Letter was greeted by a “conspiracy of silence.” Indeed, few journals, including Roman Catholic ones, commented on the Letter.
51 The “vocational group system” is similar to the “industry council plan” proposed by Roman Catholics for the United States. This plan envisages a hierarchical system of vocational groups with considerable control over economic affairs. For an outline of the industry council plan, see Eberdt, Mary Lois and Schnepps, Gerald J., Industrialism and the Popes (New York, 1953), especially pp. 1–5Google Scholar.
52 English text, op. cit., p. 35, 41, 42, 43, 44, 50–52.
53 The corruption of Quebec public life illustrates the relative inability of the Church to come to grips with many political issues. It is significant that people whose personal moral standards are among the highest in the world should tolerate so many irregularities in politics. Abbé Dion and Father Louis O'Neill wrote an article in Ad Usum Sacerdotum (a journal exclusively for priests, edited by Abbé Dion and devoted to current social issues) bitterly criticizing the corruption of the 1956 provincial elections. When the article was reported by Le devoir, August 7, 1956, it received considerable attention throughout Canada.
54 The Sacerdotal Commission on Social Studies, backing fully the demands of the strikers, paved the way for the collections. See The Gazette (Montreal), 05 2 and May 05, 1949Google Scholar. According to published figures, the Church collections amounted to $167, 558.24; the total cost of the strike was $584,377.78. Dominion of Canada, Department of Labour, Labour Gazette, XLIX (11), 1384Google Scholar.
55 Quoted in Ad Usum Sacerdotum, IV (04, 1949), 78Google Scholar.
56 See Fraser, Blair, op. cit., p. 53Google Scholar.
57 See Dion, Abbé, “Réflections sur l'intervention des prêtres dans la prise du vote de gréve à Magog,” Ad Usum Sacerdotum, XI (01, 1956), 6Google Scholar.
58 Le devoir, April 13, 1956.
59 The following words of J. C. Falardeau, Laval University sociologist, are relevant to an understanding of the changing relationship between the Church and the urban working class: “The parish can fulfill its function ideally where it is superimposed upon an isolated community whose whole population not only is Catholic but can be easily held, without outside interference, under the complete control of the Church ministers. In a city, the parish church remains the locus of religious services, but the pattern of parochial relationships assumes new characteristics… The parochial churches tend to become enterprises competing for a critical clientele, while their attending ministers become anonymous functionaries with whom only casual contacts are made.” Falardeau, , “Parish Research in Canada,” in Neusse, C. J. and Harte, T. J., eds., The Sociology of the Parish (Milwaukee, 1951), pp. 331–332Google Scholar, quoted in Fichter, J. H., , S.J., Social Relations in the Urban Parish (Chicago, 1954), p. 144Google Scholar. Father Fichter's discussion of the American urban parish applies remarkably well to the contemporary French-Canadian urban situation, although it would have little relevance to the traditional French-Canadian parish. Ibid., pp. 56–59. See also Falardeau, , “Rô;le et importance de l'église au Canada franç;ais,” Esprit, nos. 193–194 (08–09, 1952), 214–229Google Scholar.
60 “D'un prolétariat spirituel,” Esprit, nos. 193–194 (08–09, 1952), 195Google Scholar.
