Abstract
This paper explores the politics of the French Catholic Church in the larger context of the French colonial empire in Africa during the first half of the 20th century. Between the religious ideals and the concept of the “civilizing hand,” the Catholic Church became paradoxically the porte-parole of a French order that was based on an anticlerical and socialist concept of the Republic. The religious calling of several generations of clerics was used to promote the double political objective of serving both the Catholic agenda and the agenda of the French Republic: proselytism and imperialism. But, on February 23, 1954, in response to an invitation from the Catholic organization Pax Christi, Father Joseph Michel (1912-1996), a Spiritan and professor at the Institut Catholique in Paris, gave a guest lecture with a provocative title, Le devoir de décolonisation (The obligation to decolonize), for a course on rue de Varennes in Paris. The father’s views represented a complete departure from the vision of the first primate of Africa and Archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, Cardinal Charles Lavigerie (1825-1892) who “ wanted all Africa for France”. Father Joseph Michel, with the realism of a young historian has arrived at a very different conclusion.: “Missionaries entered a system where slavery was the basis” (J. Michel, “Le devoir de décolonisation”).
Presenters
Didier CourseProfessor of French, Global Languages and Literature Department, Hood College, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
French colonial empire, Decolonization, Catholic Church
