Christening Masculinity? Catholic Action and Men in Interwar Belgium

Gender & History ISSN 0953-5233Tine Van Osselaer, ‘Christening Masculinity? Catholic Action and Men in Interwar Belgium’Gender & History, Vol.21 No.2 August 2009, pp. 380–401.

Christening Masculinity? Catholic Actionand Men in Interwar Belgium

Tine Van Osselaer

In the summer of 1937, Dienen (Serve), a Belgian periodical for Catholic women, sum-moned its readers to ‘Do everything in your power to christen the still thoroughly paganconcepts of will and masculinity. Fight against Nietzsche’s idea that Christianity onlydesires and inspires feminine virtues, while Antiquity honoured masculine virtues’.1

Given Catholicism’s institutional domination by men, this was a rather strange call forbattle.

This article focuses on the response by Catholic Action (CA) to the ‘feminisation’of Christianity.2 Pope Pius X introduced Catholic Action in his encyclical Il fermoproposito (11 June 1905) as a restoration movement against the perceived secularisationof the modern world. Rome assumed a self-confident, offensive role to rechristensociety through the mobilisation of the Catholic laity. As CA allied with conservativeand fascist policy, it also offered an (imposed) alternative to Christian democraticpolitics. In Europe, the response to this restoration movement assumed various forms. Inthe Netherlands, it was no more than a loose federation of various kinds of organisation.In Italy, the Iberian Peninsula and the Third Reich, countries with authoritarian regimes,CA offered through its apolitical stance a secure shelter for Catholic lay militantswhose activities had become endangered by the regimes. However, it was preciselythis ‘apolitical’ position that could render the expansion of CA problematic in othercountries. As CA opposed Christian democratic politics, the latter viewed CA as adangerous rival. To maintain the religious and moral education of their members –and be part of CA – these organisations could be forced to end their political andsocial activities. CA’s stress on obedience to the ecclesiastical hierarchy colouredthis discussion. Lay movements enjoyed their autonomy and were rather reluctantto give it up. Accordingly, and as there was no clear-cut definition of CA to beginwith, two main models of Catholic Action developed. In Italy, Spain and Portugal,a centralist movement was organised at the national level, led and controlled by theclerical hierarchy. In France, CA was organised by class and occupation. In Belgium,both CA types developed and the adult movements under discussion here belong to thefirst model.3

Belgian CA aimed for active involvement of the laity in the apostolate of theChurch. Initially, it was mainly youth organisations that developed under its ban-ner. However, in the 1930s, when the first CA generation reached adulthood, theC© The author 2009. Journal compilation C© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street,Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Catholic Action and Men in Interwar Belgium 381

ecclesiastical hierarchy initiated adult organisations.4 There is already a vast literatureon the youth organisations; this article concentrates on the lesser-studied adult move-ments during the 1930s.5 The fact that Belgium witnessed the growth of both men’sand women’s CA organisations offers a rich opportunity to examine the discourses ofboth male and female groups in one nation. However, it must be taken into accountthat the male CA groups’ discourses were created by men – both lay people and re-ligious professionals. Women’s voices were only heard within the female movementsand even then they generally echoed the priests who guided their organisations. Fur-thermore, in contrast to the men’s movements, women’s meetings offered no singlesex sociability in the strictest sense. Their moral guides and leaders were priests whoattended their gatherings and influenced what they said. This article, then, will focuson the men’s organisations that developed in Wallonia (i.e., Francophone Belgium) andboth the male and female branches of the movement in the diocese of Bruges, whichare the best documented (non-class based) adult CA organisations.6 It will also analysethe Flemish CA periodical, Dienen, which, from 1930 onwards, advertised itself as awomen’s magazine.7

These Belgian groups did not operate at the national level, but were confinedto their dioceses. As adult CA groups developed in both Flanders (Dutch-speakingBelgium) and Wallonia, we might expect to find regional variations between the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking parts of Belgium. The linguistic divide mirrored socio-religious differences: Flanders was predominantly Catholic while Wallonia had ananticlerical tradition and its religious practice was less pronounced. In Wallonia, socialdifferences were more clear-cut and outspoken than in Flanders. Christian democracynever really flourished in Wallonia and Catholics were mainly to be found amongthe conservative bourgeois elite that faced a large anticlerical, socialist working class.According to Patrick Pasture, the Walloon Church’s strong missionary stance made hersusceptible to Catholic Action in the interwar period. In Flanders, social segregationwas less stark and anti-democratic conservatives did not dominate Catholic politicsas they did in Wallonia.8 Flanders and the Catholic institutions were ruled by theFrancophone elite, a result of decades of Gallicisation of the politically active elite.9

Language differences therefore also corresponded to class differences, which inspiredmovements to demand more autonomy and splintered Catholic unity. So the 1930s sawinitiatives to restore harmony among Catholics, such as the reformation of the CatholicParty and organisation of Catholic congresses.10

In addition to dividing youth from adults, Catholic Action stressed the divisionbetween men and women; this allows us to study how masculinity and femininityfigured in the organisation. By paying attention to both men and women, I hope toavoid the gender imbalance that historian Ursula King argues is almost typical for thegendered study of Christianity.11 This comparison is necessary: the ideal Catholic maleand female and their corresponding (gendered) behaviour and role models were, afterall, defined in relationship to each other. The documents produced by the adult CA,however, go beyond mere description of the ideal Catholic: they also offer insight intowhat they considered the ‘real’ adult Catholic, the average man or woman defined byhis or her masculine or feminine psyche. Through analysis of CA discourses, we candetect whether or not masculine involvement was important for Belgian Catholicismand how these movements ‘christened’ masculinity.

C© The author 2009. Journal compilation C© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009

382 Gender & History

Catholics in Action

The Church’s promotion of Catholic Action was stimulated by two fears: that shemight lose her influence over the laity, and that the supposed dechristianisation ofthe world would continue. Through the creation of Catholic Action, the Church triedto recapture what had been lost and ‘restore everything in Christ’ (omnia instau-rare in Christo).12 Initially this was a rather vague concept that could denote almostany Catholic organisation, including those divided by class and involved in socialquestions. However, the definition became stricter and a movement that avoided po-litical and social questions developed. Pope Pius XI reformulated Catholic Actionin the 1920s in order to establish a modus vivendi with Mussolini and give themovement some breathing space in a fascist Italy that did not welcome Catholicpolitical involvement. This ‘new style’ Catholic Action spread a message of Catholicunity and non-political involvement, and limited Catholic Action to only religiousmatters.13

This creation of a feeling of Catholic unity was a central feature in the CAmovement on several levels. All local CA organisations were connected internationallythrough the ‘Mother Church’ in Rome. CA organisations also provided cohesion atthe national level since Catholics of the same nationality would, in theory, overcomepolitical or class divisions to combine forces.14 However, the reformulated CA oftencreated tensions through its attempts at control. One such tension revolved aroundthe Catholic social movements’ difficulty with accepting the ecclesiastical hierarchy:they had laid claim to governing the moral and religious aspects of their members’lives and resented new directives from above. The acceptance of the ‘new style’ CAmovement was also complicated by its apolitical stance. Although CA’s apoliticalnature allowed them to exist in fascist and authoritarian regimes, other Catholic socialmovements were already involved politically. Catholic social movements’ moral andreligious mandates made them automatically part of CA, but the Church required thatthey step back from commenting on party politics or government decisions. This oftenled to fervent discussions among members, with ad hoc solutions being put in place. Italso often led to the depolitisation of the various movements.15

In Belgium, a symbiosis began between these social movements on the one handand specialised class-based and new style CA on the other hand. In the Belgian youthCA, for example, some groups followed the ‘Roman model’ and did not make distinc-tions according to class. However, by the 1920s another type of CA youth movementhad developed in Belgium. These specialised CA youth groups, which focused on acertain class (for example working-class youth), became an example for CA elsewherein Europe. Although other countries admired them for their successes – which theyowed to their restricted membership – they also criticised them for reinforcing classinstead of community among Catholics.16 For the youth CA organisations in Belgium,the ‘unity’ and ‘class-based’ youth organisations achieved a balance through their or-ganisational model in which the ‘unity’ movements acted as a coordinating institutionfor the specialised movements.17 This coexistence was based upon the Church’s pre-existing recognition of the specialisation principle for the Belgian youth movements:Catholic Action would be transmitted through class-based CA organisations coordi-nated by confederations that conformed to the new style CA in both Wallonia andFlanders.18



Incidentally, it was from this apolitical CA youth movement in Belgium that apolitical party later developed to divide Belgium’s French-speaking Catholic voters.In the 1936 elections, Rex, a political party with roots in the CA youth movement,challenged the Catholic Party. Rex, named after the unity youth movement’s publishinghouse, Editions Rex, and its leader, Leon Degrelle, announced that they had outgrownthe apolitical CA youth movement and as young adults wanted to let their Catholicideals influence the nation’s politics. They soon had to present themselves as a politicalparty and not as part of the CA movement, to respect CA’s apolitical stance. Rexcriticised the Belgian Catholic Party as a relic of the past that was unable to attain realchange. As a ‘catch-all protest movement’,19 it was capable of attracting all Catholicvoters hoping for change in an economically and politically unstable climate wherepeople had little hope for the future. At the 1936 elections it was remarkably successful,mainly at the expense of the Catholic Party. However, as Rex closed an accord withthe anti-Belgian Flemish nationalists and developed from a ‘right-wing populist intoa fascist party’, it was condemned by the Church as a ‘threat to the Church andcountry’ and lost most of its voters in the elections of April 1937.20 Notwithstandingits later stance, Rex is a good example of a generation of Catholic youth who weretrained by Catholic Action and were no longer content with a status quo represented byan older, democratic generation.21 Their youth movements demanded a more militantCatholicism characterised primarily by anti-liberal and traditional features.22 However,in the second half of the 1930s (after a letter by the bishops and the Rex debacle),the youth movements formulated fewer critiques of the existing liberal and secularstructures.23 By the 1930s, then, as the first generation reached adulthood, the call foradult CA movements grew louder,24 as did the call for more unity among Catholicsin Belgium. This ideal was promoted by the Catholic Congress of Mechelen in 1936,where the two CA movements for adult men present both stressed Catholic unity.

As the Catholic laity were divided by class and politics, Catholic Action’s or-ganisational model became a central issue.25 In the reformulation of Catholic Actionin the 1920s, the Belgian ecclesiastical hierarchy had explicitly stressed obedience tothe bishops.26 As such, CA contrasted with the social movements organised by classsuch as the Christian Workers’ Movement (Algemeen Christelijk Werkersverbond)and the Farmers’ League (Boerenbond) whose growing independence had alarmedBelgian bishops. The development of CA created tension among these groups andled to discussions over the authority of the social organisations that had included re-ligious (and so ostensibly CA) activities in their social education work. The socialorganisations were left with the choice of either stepping back from their politicalactivities and keeping control over all aspects of their members’ lives, or tolerat-ing the existence of another organisation over which they would have no power.27

The introduction of adult CA groups can therefore be regarded as an attempt to re-store the bishops’ authority and limit the freedom of existing Catholic movements,as a reaction against the democratisation these organisations represented.28 Further-more, it is not only present-day scholars who have depicted these CA movementsas the culmination of an authoritarian and totalitarian clericalism;29 contemporariesalso held this opinion. According to the leaders of another Belgian Catholic men’smovement, the League of the Sacred Heart, the general image that the men’s CAmovement created was one of ‘totalitarian clericalism’ that would surely provoke laypeople.30



Although the creation of adult CA movements would only become compulsoryin Belgium through the Provincial Council of 1937, the first initiatives can be tracedback earlier.31 In Flanders and Wallonia the male branch of the adult movementsdeveloped first. Under the direction of the bishops, the Flemish Mannenverbond voorKatholieke Actie (MVKA, Men’s League for Catholic Action of the diocese of Bruges)and Action Catholique des Hommes (ACH, Walloon Catholic Action for Men) werecreated in 1935 and 1936. The Flemish women’s organisation of the Bruges dioceseof the Vrouwenverbond voor Katholieke Actie (VVKA, Women’s League for CatholicAction) did not appear until 1937.32 It is hard to identify a women’s organisation inWallonia that is comparable to the men’s movements. In the 1930s, their Catholicmovements were still organised by class and did not have a comparable umbrellaorganisation coordinating their actions.33 ‘Women’, mocked a contemporary, ‘cannoteven agree on the creation of a common front for the apostolate or Catholic Action’.34

Apparently, the women did agree in 1936: at the Catholic Congresses in Mechelen, theleaders of the specialised women’s organisations pleaded for the creation of a parallelwomen’s CA movement.35 However, this plea never resulted in the creation of a formalorganisation.36

The three adult CA movements that took shape assumed different forms. TheWalloon movement had a coordinating function for various specialised male groupsand religious works. In contrast, both the male and the female branches of the FlemishCA movement developed independently of the existing social and religious move-ments.37 It was the bishop of Bruges, Mgr Lamiroy, who stimulated this independentcharacter of the Flemish CA movements. In the event of fascist and dictatorial regimes,Catholic movements would, in his opinion, only survive if they were under the directcontrol of the Church and had no political goals – and indeed the groups contin-ued during the Nazi Occupation of Belgium after 1940.38 However, the Walloon andFlemish movements did share some characteristics: they stressed Belgian Catholicunity and were under the supervision of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, unlike the moreindependent social organisations.39 The development of these adult CA movementsimplied more than the creation of yet another Catholic movement: at stake was con-trol over the masses. CA might have been apolitical, but it still aimed to rechris-tianise society and influence all segments of human life via its version of Christianvalues.

At the 1937 Provincial Council in Mechelen, the lines of CA were demarcatedand compromise was embraced: the classes (particularly the workers’ movement andfarmers’ league) had their share, but there was also a call for coordinating movements,one each for men, women, young men and young women.40 This was not quite assimple as it seemed, though: in 1939, the Walloon men’s section presented itself asthe Francophone executive committee of a national council for men as a whole, eventhough no Flemish counterpart as yet existed. While it mentioned initiatives for a maleCA movement in the Flemish districts of Mechelen, Ghent and Bruges, these initiativeswould never turn into a national movement.41 The first contacts between the Flemishand Walloon branches made clear that they had differing aspirations. This is amplyillustrated by Karel Dubois, chaplain of the Flemish movement in Bruges, who statedthat the Walloon movement’s organisational plan was unclear and believed that theWallonia executive committee would lack the authority to control the organisation andits actions.42



Milites Christi

Men’s Catholic Action regarded itself as responsible for improving men’s religiosity.In Belgium, they had to respond to the different regional and linguistic needs. In themore urbanised region of Wallonia, for example, CA initiatives were stimulated by thefeeling that men were in desperate need of an apostolate. ‘It is among the young andthe adult men that dechristianisation rages in the most lamentable way. And it is mainlythe religious situation among the adult and young men that guides the apostolate wewant to promote.’43 This questioning of men’s religiosity is closely related to one of themain themes of the ‘feminisation thesis’: the so-called ‘gender gap’ between religiouswomen and irreligious – or less religious – men.44 However, this opinion was notcommon across Belgium at the time. Furthermore, while the Flemish movement alsoinvestigated people’s observance of Sunday religious rites and received several lettersabout male non-observers, this movement did not depict men’s situation as being anyworse than women’s. Indeed, the Flemish movement concluded that both sexes wereto blame for the fact that on average, 26.5 per cent of all of those who were obligedto go to mass (‘misplichtigen’) in the more rural diocese of West Flanders were non-observers.45 They found that both men and women had to work on gender-specificreasons for non-observance: on Sundays women were not to do their laundry and menhad to avoid going to work.46

The male CA movements had another reason to see men as an important targetgroup. Men were believed to influence the public domain and, since Catholic Actionaimed to rechristianise society as a whole, men had to be called to the apostolate andeven had to become the ‘first of all the laity’.47 The first adult movements of CatholicAction in West Flanders and Wallonia that developed under the watchful eye of thebishops, therefore, were aimed specifically at a male audience. In these single-sexmovements, the members knew all the pretexts by which men commonly tried toavoid their religious duties, which they then skilfully employed to mobilise other men.They anticipated men’s arguments for non-observance of their Easter duties, knowing,‘through experience how easily men let themselves be absorbed by their daily tasks,their family life, profession, relations and society’.48 They also concentrated uponmodern media such as cinema, radio and the press.49 While they continued to promoteChristian schools and public morality, they also contributed to the Catholic press andradio and protested against ‘immoral’ films, periodicals and papers. Alongside theirradio programmes and articles, they used brochures, posters, banners and newspaperannouncements to further their ends (see Figure 1). Finally, they organised forums todebate the modern media’s possible benefits and threats and pushed for the sponsorshipof Catholic cinemas and radio programmes.50

Although the call to ‘Christianise the still thoroughly pagan concepts of willand masculinity’ was made in 1937, the concept of the ideal Christian male hadbeen established earlier. The figure of the Catholic knight and soldier, the ‘milesChristi’, presented as a role model to all the laity, enabled Catholic men to combinecontemporary masculine ideals with the Christian values of obedience, submissionand sacrifice.51 The potentially negative connotations of the words submission andobedience faded once these ideals were used in militaristic metaphors. In CA discourse,Catholic men fought as ‘brothers in arms’ and ‘soldiers of Christ’ ‘on the front line’and ‘the battlefield’ of modern life handling the ‘weapon of prayer’.52 The masculinity



Figure 1: Poster of the Flemish Movement to stimulate the moral improvementof films and cinemas (1937). Courtesy of KADOC–K.U. Leuven.

of these ‘milites’ is not in doubt as they also demonstrated ‘courage’, ‘steadfastness’and the ‘drive for action’. This was not a new metaphor: comparing people to knightsor soldiers was a common feature in Catholic tradition; it recurred regularly in variousyouth movements and was even used for female missionaries.53 Within the maleCatholic Action movements, however, it was strongly promoted. The martial andmilitary metaphors prevailed in the description of the apostolic field as well as inorganisational structures and actions.

The army and war – men’s worlds par excellence – were not the only ‘male’fields to which CA’s activities were compared. The business world also offered a



stock of metaphors, especially for the Walloon CA. On home visits, the CA manwas often depicted as a ‘salesman of Christ’.54 This metaphorical use extended to analmost complete identification of men with the business world, with the CA leadershiprecommending that members use the methods of the ‘businessman’ in the organisationof CA activities: they should not waste time or money and, if possible, should delegatesome responsibility to the laity.55 The world of the labourer, on the other hand, did notcontribute to the CA arsenal of metaphors. Despite their stress on unity, male CA wasnot very accessible to all classes. This certainly appeared to be the case among malemembers of CA in Wallonia. Apparently, only the groups that operated at a parish levelattracted members from all milieux. The national and regional boards were far lessdiverse and also expected bourgeois qualities from the members.56 While the FlemishCA was fairly popular among farmers, the movement never seems to have attracted themiddle classes. Its relation with the working classes was not unproblematic either as itcreated friction with the workers’ social movements.57 However, CA images primarilyalluded to the military, an imagined world to which many men could relate.

The model of Catholic manhood gained clearer contours when it was contrastedto a Catholic man who did not live up to the ideal. ‘The Catholic of action’ had nothingin common with those who were merely Catholic out of habit or who did not have thecombative spirit requested of CA members.58 Men who defended Catholicism from‘their armchair’ or men who were ‘only in it for the honour’ were not useful, nor werethose resistant to change, afraid to take on a more active role or become a pioneer in themovement.59 In the idealisation of their ‘warrior’ role, CA members did not hesitateto compare themselves to other, even communist, militants and look upon their owndedication in a critical way.60 The picture taken from a propaganda brochure after theoutbreak of the Second World War (Figure 2) shows Catholic men battling under thebanner of Christ the King, fulfilling their apostolate along the barricades of life.

CA leaders compared their own relationship to Jesus with that of ‘a Nazi to hisFuhrer’ and ‘a fascist to his Duce’, as Figure 2 would suggest; yet they denounced thecontemporary image of Jesus as it paid too little attention to his humility and gentlenessand too much to his disputes and capacities as a leader.61 Furthermore, while CAdiscourses portrayed Christ as a ‘world conqueror’, ‘warrior’ and ‘leader’, they avoidedover-accentuating the ‘battling Christ’ image.62 Their comments on the contemporaryimage with its stress on the reigning warrior Christ illuminate the importance theyattached to Christ’s depiction. While he often functions as the idealised Christian man,his image has been altered to suit different national and denominational contexts. Christin the men’s CA movements was a ‘masculine example’ and his actions were ‘masculinegood’. By stressing his masculinity and regarding him as a clearly male prototype,63

CA leaders were comparable with other Christian men’s movements.64 However, whileCA was willing to borrow the imagery of contemporary mass movements, they alsodenounced ‘worldly Fuhrers’ and worldly ideals as nothing but a form of ‘modernpaganism’.65 The movement thus fits into Emilio Gentile’s description of interwarCatholicism, which rejected the personality cults of the fascist states as the ‘apotheosisof the living man’ and criticised a pagan ‘statolatry’ that put the State before religion.66

Furthermore, in the men’s CA periodicals, communism, racism and fascism – the three‘modern ideologies’ – are all depicted as enemies of the Church: communism viewedthe Church as an accomplice of capitalism; ‘racism’ only desired a national Church;and fascism sought to confine her to religious matters.67 According to the movement’s



Figure 2: Getuigen voor Christus 3 (November 1939), p. 1. Courtesy ofKADOC–K.U. Leuven.

periodicals, Catholicism had nothing to envy: if there was anything good or true inthose modern ideas, it was simply a remnant of stolen Christianity.68

However, there were similarities in CA ideals and those of the fascist movementsas both wanted to influence all segments of human life and left no room for othertendencies. In a CA course of the 1930s, four modern currents – secularism, Bolshev-ism, Nazism and fascism – were depicted as modern mysticism and were criticised fortheir vision of church and religion. Fascism however, was judged a little better than



‘Hitlerianism’ since it had not yet displayed any opposition to Christianity. Nazism onthe other hand, had not only persecuted the Christian Church but also displayed a cultof blood, race and nation. As CA predicted a future in which the state would influenceculture, Catholics had to ensure that future leaders would disdain materialism. Theirtask was to ensure that Christian principles would form the spiritual inspiration ofmodern culture that was in crisis, searching for new values and unity. CA thereforewanted to create a ‘new Catholic human type’, an elite that would influence themasses.69 The movement stressed obedience, discipline and authority and revered itsleader, Christ. It thereby reformulated older ideas of militarism so that they fell in linewith contemporary ones. But this martial imagery of CA, while typical of the time, wasnot confined to Catholic Action. It is also evident in the Belgian socialist movement,who also used similar images of marches and military metaphors in their campaign,‘the Plan’, and focused on an authoritarian leader, the politician Hendrik De Man.70

Therefore, in the 1930s the Belgian people were not only mobilised for various ideals,they were asked to enlist in an army, be it socialist or Catholic.

Although the military metaphors – so common in the male CA branches – wereseldom used to refer to the women’s movement, women’s Catholic Action groupsstill described CA as an ‘army’ and the women involved as ‘militantes’.71 Christ wasdepicted as a military leader. Emilie Arnould, secretary of a CA girls’ organisation,emphasised his leadership at the Catholic congresses of Mechelen in 1936 and statedCA should create a leader cult around Christ: other movements had Hitler and Mussolinias their leaders and the CA leadership believed their male and female militants neededChrist as a brother and a leader.72 Arnould clearly did not hesitate to compare CA withNazism and Fascism, and acknowledged their shared martial imagery. However, like themen’s movements, the female branches of Catholic Action opposed the image of Christas it was promoted in Germany, finding it unacceptable to stress Christ’s punishmentsover his suffering: ‘when our Lord chases away the merchants from the temple, thenChrist is their man. But His suffering, His death on the cross, His teachings aboutsacrifice appears to them impracticable and intolerable’.73 Nazism was condemned byCA women with the same ardour as it was criticised by men. Women’s periodicalsdenounced fervent nationalism and the accompanying racism that sacrificed innocenthuman lives without any recognition of their humanity.74 Germany was depicted asa state ruled by a totalitarian theory which left no room for religion, as a country inwhich the name God was replaced by Wodan in the psalms, and where tributes wereoffered up to the German gods. The German CA movement was characterised as abrave resistance movement under the leadership of the bishops. Some of its leaders,arrested for writing unflattering articles about Hitler and for openly remaining faithfulto Christ the King, were included among the Catholic martyrs.75

This depiction of Jesus as leader of his army was not the only martial image in thewomen’s movement. The military metaphors also lingered on in the description of CAwomen as ‘militantes’. According to Michaela De Giorgio, the use of this term wasaccompanied by the introduction of a new type of Catholic womanhood. No longerconfined to domesticity, Catholic women took on their apostolic mission and battled forthe kingdom of Christ outside the private or family sphere.76 Still, their identificationwith the ‘soldier of Christ’ was not complete. It seems as if the symbolic incorporationof this ideal, the physical representation of Christ’s army, was limited to male andyouth movements. In the programme of the 1939 Diocesan Eucharistic Congress at



Kortrijk, for example, five marching routes for the men’s groups are described and twofor the youth groups. There are none, however, for the women’s organisations, eventhough their members were present at the congress.77 Apparently, women could notparticipate in public as Christ’s soldiers.

The idea of the Church’s need for ‘real’ men to make Catholic Action a successappeared frequently. Men’s CA groups repeatedly used Pope Leo XIII’s statement,‘what a healthy man in his years of strength can realise, could never be asked of awoman or child’ to garner support among men.78 This demand for ‘real’ men was mostexplicitly formulated by the Swiss priest Robert Mader (1875–1945) whose work waswell known in Belgian CA.79 According to Mader, ‘the feminisation of the so-calledmen’s world’ had become reality; ‘we have lost our will and fists, we, men!’80 Hislamentation parallels the anxiety invoked by the so-called ‘crises in masculinity’ ofother contemporary discourses. These discourses depict ‘manliness’ as a fragile thingand crises – with their accompanying ‘remasculinisations’ – pepper the record at theend of the nineteenth century and during the 1930s, to such an extent that they havebecome almost a topos within masculinity studies.81

Mader’s work is unique within CA in its identification of the Church’s demandfor ‘real’ men with a concomitant ‘feminisation’ of religion; nevertheless, stressing‘masculinity’ and the ‘masculine’ characteristics of its members was central to CAdiscourse. Members were described as ‘real men’, with ‘masculine’ features: not onlydid they have masculine ‘strength’, ‘resolution’ and ‘spirit’ but were ‘taking’ thechallenge to rechristen the world ‘as a man’; and were constantly exhorted to ‘be aman and stand strong’.82 CA discourses always presented men’s masculinity as partof their identity and as a reason why they should be involved in CA. The invitation tothe Diocesan Eucharistic Congress of 1939 is a perfect example of this wide-rangingdiscourse: ‘I’m a Catholic, I’m a man, I’m part of CA, I will be present at Kortrijk!’83

It is important to note that, while ‘masculinity’ was a positive feature in CAdiscourse, it was apparently more closely connected with men’s character than theirphysical qualities. According to Robert Mader, men should not pay too much attentionto the cultivation of a Hercules figure. Instead, Mader suggested:

After a time of weak feminisation, there comes a time of strong manliness. Who’s the man ofCatholic Action? We don’t mean the perfect age or bodily strength. There are people who are stillchildren in their thirties. One can also be physically full-grown, a Hercules, a colossus, and yet nota man. The degree of manliness is not measured with a yardstick or a pair of scales; in that caseoxen, camels and elephants would have a better case than humans . . . What is a man of CatholicAction? . . . A man with an iron will.84

Another means to make the ‘male apostolate’ more attractive was the ‘menonly’ technique. Men’s Catholic Action groups were exclusive. Invitations to theirmeetings barred women, but expected every man in the neighbourhood to attend.According to Mgr Picard, one of the founders and also a CA chaplain, their gath-erings were a place where lay men could join the priests in a ‘circle of friends’.Years later, Giovanni Hoyois, a former leader of the Walloon men’s movement com-mented upon the phrase ‘circle of friends’ and remarked that ‘this nuance excludedwomen’.85 These homosocial gatherings and the so-called volksvergaderingen (publicmeetings) also confirmed their identity as Catholic men. The meetings set men apartfrom the world of women and non-Catholic men, stressing their unity and reinforcing



those two components of their identity.86 These gatherings aimed at the active in-volvement of all who attended, and they attempted to create a community feelingthrough singing about a ‘brotherhood’ fighting a faceless enemy.87 Members of theFlemish movement also showed this unity and Catholic identity to the outside worldby wearing a badge and marching together. Through these marches and public gath-erings they also emulated their religious role models and symbolically became militesChristi.88

Male/female

The division of Catholic Action into four ‘natural’ groups (adult men, boys, adultwomen and girls), and the accentuation of male exclusivity, point to a clear dis-tinction between men and women. Since there was a ‘masculine’ and a ‘feminine’soul, there were also ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ soul characteristics influenced by amale and female body.89 It is not surprising, then, that CA considered it necessaryto take these sexual differences into account when organising. Women were com-monly considered ‘too weak for abstraction’; they had ‘difficulties in coping withcritique’, but shared ‘female intuition’ and ‘practical sense’. Therefore, they had tobe given tasks to which they could devote themselves immediately (for example or-ganising Christmas and Easter parties). Since they also ‘felt hurt more easily’ and‘had a stronger desire for approval’, debating, popular with young men, had to beavoided.90

While CA considered the sexes to be different, they were also regarded as com-plementary: men and women were ‘relative’ creatures defined in relationship to eachother. The same could be said about the field of action of CA men and women. Asthe ‘temperament and the nature of man and woman’ were ‘too different to let the twomovements converge’, their apostolic fields assumed different forms. A woman couldhave ‘a bigger influence on children and education’ while a man could be ‘a betterpropagandist’.91 The distinction between men’s and women’s fields of action closelyresembled stereotypical ‘separate spheres’ ideology: ‘Man is mind and strength. Hefinds his workspace outside the home, for the benefit of his family. Woman is heartand devotion. She avoids the crowded streets and turns her own home into the mostdelightful place on earth, for the benefit of her husband and children’.92 Thus, the firstapostolic field of women lay within the family.93 Women’s influence on the householdand the importance of the rechristianisation of the family made one contemporarydoubt the necessity of constructing a men’s movement altogether. In a comment onthe creation of the Walloon men’s movement, he remarked that women’s return toChristianity was ‘the cornerstone’ of every moral building, that women were the ‘tool’to affect men’s hearts and without them all efforts at rechristianisation would remain‘sterile’.94 But his ideas were not widely shared and did not dent what others con-sidered to be the father’s importance in his household. Furthermore, his argumentscreated a rather simplistic division between the ‘male’ and ‘female’ apostolate thatdid not reflect reality. Although men were regarded as more influential in the publicsphere, they were, like women, held responsible for the religious life of their families.As a father, a man had the same footing as the parish priest, both of them ‘fathers of ahousehold’.95



Miss America versus Mother Mary

The more saintly a woman, the more womanly she is.96

Catholic Action’s goal to ‘restore all in Christ’ could not be realised by men alone.The rechristianisation movement honoured the principle that the best apostolate wasachieved through specialisation; it followed logically that the ‘first apostles of women’had to be women themselves.97 Aside from the fact that women’s piety could beregarded as a basic part of their femininity, it was clear that they also had an apos-tolic calling. Not only did they have influence in their homes and on (male) familymembers,98 CA noted that their cooperation in certain fields such as films was signifi-cant.99 Should women doubt their mission, they could refer to the important roles theirillustrious predecessors had played in the history of Catholicism. Susanna, Joanna,Mary Magdalene, the martyrs and female apostles (such as Phoebe and Priscilla) weredepicted as ‘women to whom the Church owed so much’.100 CA discussion sessionsand publications with titles like ‘What woman can do’ point to the importance theyattached to the definition of a female apostolic field.101 The female branches of CAaccentuated – as their male counterparts did for men – the indispensability of womenfor Catholic Action.102

The debt between Catholicism and women was mutual.103 Catholicism had helpedthem keep their dignity and their ‘femininity’. Catholic Action women were ‘real’women who shared little with their ‘Americanised’ sisters, mere ‘caricatures’ of men.These women had lost ‘pride’ in ‘their own special nature’, and simply strove forcomplete equality with men, seeing ‘no other cultural values than male values’.104

Catholic femininity, on the other hand, was ‘real’ femininity and it stressed women’spositive differences from men. Not only was a woman’s ‘pious personality’ of sacrificeand dedication ‘more easily brought to sanctity’ than that of a man, but it was their‘feminine’ intuition, servitude and ‘sharp eye’ that helped CA women gain an effectiveapostolate.105 Apparently, women were regarded as being more suited for certainCA activities than men.106 Besides ‘servitude’, the ideal of every female CA apostlecould be viewed as a continuation of women’s tasks as mother and adult woman,107

though this may have merely served to justify their public activities, much like Flemishnationalists of the period.108

Although women’s active involvement in the apostolic field was generally sup-ported and promoted, CA norms buttressed the idea of men’s ‘natural’ authority andconfirmed patriarchal society as laid down by the constitution and Catholic tradition.Men were expected to ‘rule’; women were supposed to ‘serve’. The feminine idealcentred on the cradle and the home and women were to avoid working outside theirhomes.109 Within Catholic Action discourses, femininity was often identified withmotherhood and a woman without a ‘mother’s heart’ could be labelled ‘inhuman’.110

Although influenced by the so-called ‘psychosis of depopulation’,111 CA did not agreethat motherhood should be a potentially ‘lucrative job’, something they identified withwomen in totalitarian regimes who received baby bonuses from the government. Al-though CA believed that motherhood was the basis for national power, CA womendenounced the degeneration and politicisation of motherhood. Christian women shouldregard motherhood as a ‘calling’,112 indeed their most important CA task. As one saidin 1941: ‘Isn’t it the hardest, toughest and most important CA task that weighs on their



shoulders: the bearing and rearing of their children who in their turn will be a memberof God’s reign on earth?’113

While Christ as a leader was an important image, it was his mother, Mary, whowas held up as an example for the women of the Catholic Action to follow.114 Modesty,helpfulness and morality were considered ideal feminine characteristics and a ‘MissAmerica or Miss Europe’ had better abandon the idea that she ‘achieved more than theimmaculate Virgin Mother of Nazareth’!115 Nevertheless, according to CA women’speriodicals, charm was not necessarily in opposition to morality. Catholic women wereattractive too: they were not ‘sanctimonious’ or ‘cold’ but rather had a ‘je ne sais quoi,an aristocracy of the mind, the opposite of sex-appeal’.116 Still, charm was a dangerousgift and it seemed as if it was ‘mainly the women’s and girls’ worlds’ that werethreatened by ‘moral ruin’.117 This threat, commonly identified as ‘fashion’, produceda set of possessions and actions that were not solely concerned with the salvation ofwomen’s souls. Fashion also posed a mortal danger to men, who could be led to ruinby women. Five centimetres in the hemline of a woman’s skirt not only separated aheathen from a Christian woman, it decided the destiny of a number of men’s souls:

To be respectable and modest, clothes have to avoid everything that might provoke a normal manor youth. In this respect there are three kinds of men. Some of them stand strong in their virtue.They will not be offended by the extravagances of fashion: indignant about it, they will turn awaytheir heads. Others are spoiled already – even without fashion. But between those two extremitiesthere is a crowd of the weak. These men will find in the immorality of dress the danger of a deadlytemptation. If a lot of women would be aware of what is going on in the souls of men, they wouldno longer shrug their shoulders whenever a priest talks about the dangers of fashion.118

Apparently, dressing properly did not only imply women’s observance of Christianvalues, it was also a visible component of their role as moral guardians of men’ssouls.

Good Catholics

While the entire laity was supposed to fulfil an apostolic mission, men and womenwere to undertake these missions in different ways.119 As the adult CA movementsstressed the unity of Belgian Catholics beyond class, one could even say that thedistinction between men and women was the most important difference after thedivision between adults and youth. Within men’s CA, men could be generalised:regardless of occupation, they all had to take on their apostolic mission within theirprofessional fields, as was made clear by an invitation template that left the reader’sprofession blank to be filled in.120 Nevertheless, class differences did matter to the maleCA movements. In the Flemish movement, a special CA group for farmers developedin order to battle the negative influence of the ‘heathen city’ and the ‘modern lack ofmorals’ as well as to appeal to the special ‘religious and moral needs’ of farmers.121

Men were also divided by class as the result of an inquiry into the laity’s profanation ofSunday. Flemish CA concluded that higher-class men were negatively influenced by‘liberal mentality’, ‘the desire for leisure’ and ‘selfish indifference’, though labourerswere worse, often working Sunday shifts. Farmers were ‘the healthiest part of thewest Flemish population’, although no information about their Sabbath observancewas given.122 Age, life experience and family situation also made men slightly more



unique and less interchangeable: fathers and older men were not expected to attendCA gatherings every week, a commitment demanded of younger men.123

Differences between men and women were catalogued in long lists that avoidedany blurring between the genders. Men, not only Catholics, were considered capable ofstrength, will, steadiness, independence and reason; women had dedication, servitude,feeling, gentleness and warmth.124 ‘Masculinity’ was a positive feature for men, butwomen’s CA clearly stated when they formed their organisations that they wanted toavoid ‘masculinism’ and ‘masculinisation’.125 Getrud von le Fort, an author recom-mended to CA women, described this ‘masculinisation’ as a ‘riotous femininity’, aspecial kind of woman no longer capable of submitting herself to men as she wasinstructed in God’s plan. Such a woman faced two risks: she was in danger of ‘refusingherself to a man’ but at the same time she could ‘get addicted to him’.126 CA-approvedwriters at the time identified ‘masculinisation’ with feminism and they discouragedwomen’s battle for equality as it ‘contravened the explicit will of the Creator’.127 How-ever, women’s CA did not abandon feminism altogether; rather, its leaders only wantedwhat they called ‘healthy ecclesiastical feminism’.128 CA movements were clear aboutwhat should constitute women’s roles and what their ideal characteristics should be,and they attempted to defend them against what they saw as a modern, amoral society.When the film La Garconne was released in 1936, Flemish CA men organised protestsagainst it.129 The garconne of the title was sexually confusing, emancipated from tra-ditional family values, demonstrated ‘masculine’ behaviour and possessed no physicalattributes of femininity (such as long hair) – the very opposite of CA ideals.130 Yet,while CA idealised Mary-like qualities, they also stressed women’s equality and ac-corded them an active role in public. Women were supposed to combine both nurturingfemininity in their apostolate and make a female leadership acceptable to the Churchand men’s CA.

Images of the Catholic man were also ambiguous. On the one hand he was ex-pected to show ‘modesty’ and a ‘spirit of sacrifice’, while also being characterisedby a ‘power to act’, ‘perseverance’ and, above all, ‘courage’. He was dedicated to hisfamily, work and Catholic Action.131 The ideal Catholic man, therefore, had somethingin common with ‘hegemonic masculinity’.132 Like Saint Joseph, he was head of a het-erosexual, patriarchal family yet, as a CA member, he also belonged to a homosocialbrotherhood ruled by a strict hierarchy. Ironically, perhaps, the men at the top of thishierarchical pyramid – the bishops and the Pope – were celibate bachelors. Neverthe-less, in their norms and ideals, these religious professionals underpinned patriarchalsociety and especially the dominance of men over women. And, as both the male laityand religious attended CA meetings, priests were clearly included in this single-sexsociability. So, while priests identified to an extent with the male laity and were celibatethemselves, they stressed heterosexuality and maintained the Church’s notorious fearof homosexuality.

Although a distinction between genders was made, and although both had specifictasks, their equality was still explicitly defined by the Catholic Church, institutionallystill a male brotherhood.133 Women were rarely thought of as the ‘weaker sex’ andaccorded courage comparable to that of men.134 Notwithstanding this professed genderequality, the accentuation of ideal characteristics clearly followed a demarcation basedupon gender difference. Contrary to descriptions of men, women’s ideal features wereoften connected to their physical qualities.135 CA held motherhood (within wedlock)



and an unwed woman’s virginity in high esteem. Since she combined both theseideals, Mary was a model for all women.136 Although women’s bodies were bothrevered and feared as a potential source of sin, men’s bodies slipped from view.CA only asked for male modesty and advised against an overcultivation of physicalstrength.137 The ‘embodiment’ of women was, as has been noted for the modern middleclasses, accompanied by a ‘disembodiment’ of men.138 In contrast to a visual middle-class culture obsessed with the physical, Catholic discourses did not really stress thedesirability of women’s bodies; instead, they accentuated women’s physical potentialas mothers.

Conclusion

The ideal Catholic Action member appears to have been a combination of courage,power to act, idealism, perseverance, obedience, will to sacrifice and gentleness. Aspower, will, firmness and courage were depicted as masculine characteristics, anddedication, servitude and gentleness were considered feminine, one could say thatthe ideal Catholic of the Catholic Action movement combined both ‘masculine’ and‘feminine’ characteristics. Still, men’s involvement in CA appears to have been a centraltheme for Belgian Catholicism in the 1930s. Leaders of the Belgian CA movementwere so concerned with men’s religious involvement that they were inspired to createmen’s movements in Wallonia. In Flanders, in the diocese of Bruges, men’s religiositywas not considered more problematic than women’s. Even so, the first adult CAmovements there were men’s movements. Within CA, discourses revolved around theimportance of (re)capturing the (‘male’) public spheres. Leaders saw men’s attendanceat public assemblies (volksvergaderingen) as essential.139 Although women’s CA wasdiscussed early on, these organisations appear to have been a supplement to the men’smovements, with women seen as men’s ‘helpers’.140 Women could ‘prepare’ a fieldfor CA intervention, but were supposed to leave the real action, the ‘constructiverealisation’ to men, even though women were supposed to ensure their own husbands’piety.141 Why did CA try so hard to involve men and why were they so grateful whenmen willingly showed their Catholic identity through their actions?142 The sourcessuggest that men’s mobilisation in CA was rather exceptional. Crowds – at leastaccording to CA itself – were astounded that adult men ‘could be mobilised for idealsthat had nothing to do with politics and did not aim at material benefits’.143 Butperhaps the reason that Belgian Catholic Action leaders worked so hard to reach menwas because they knew of, and were keen to promote, men’s power:

From a psychological point of view it is correct to accentuate ‘men’s action’ because experiencehas taught that men live under the impression that they are not qualified for the various activitiesand since one can safely assume that women will follow once men are in action. It is however notso certain that men will follow women.144

NotesThis article was written in the context of ‘In Search of the Good Catholic M/F. Feminisation and Masculinity inBelgian Catholicism (c.1750–1950)’, a research project supported by the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders).

1. Friedrich W. Foerster, ‘Enkele hoofdwaarheden der echte opvoeding’, Dienen 10 (July/August 1937),pp. 295–8, here p. 296.

2. On the ‘feminisation’ of Christianity, see Bernhard Schneider, ‘Feminisierung der Religion im 19.Jahrhundert’, Trierer Theologische Zeitschrift 11 (2002), pp. 123–48; Yvonne-Maria Werner, ‘Christliche



Mannlichkeit – Ein Paradox der Moderne: Manner und Religion im nordeuropaischen Kontext 1840–1940’, conference paper, AIM (Arbeitskreis fur Interdisziplinare Manner- und Geschlechterforschung)Gender Tagung, Stuttgart-Hohenheim, 2004: <http://www.ruendal.de/aim/tagung04/pdfs/yvonne_werner.pdf>; Jean-Francois Roussel, ‘Roman Catholic Religious Discourse about Manhood in Que-bec: From 1900 to the Quiet Revolution (1960–1980)’, Journal of Men’s Studies 11 (2003), pp. 145–55;Tine Van Osselaer and Thomas Buerman, ‘Feminisation Thesis: A Survey of International Historiographyand a Probing of Belgian Grounds’, Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique 103 (2008), pp. 497–544.

3. Wilhelm Damberg, ‘Entwicklungslinien des Europaischen Katholizismus im 20. Jahrhundert’, Journalof Modern European Society 3 (2005), pp. 164–82, here p. 173; Andre Tihon, Christianisme et societe:Approches historiques (Brussels: Publications des Facultes Universitaires Saint-Louis, 2000), pp. 74–7.

4. Emmanuel Gerard, ‘Cardijn, Arbeidersbeweging en Katholieke Actie (1918–1945)’, in Magda Pluymersand Luc Vints (eds), Cardijn een mens, een beweging (Leuven: Universitaire Pers, KADOC, 1983),pp. 119–45, here p. 135; Christine Gaisse, ‘Action Catholique des Hommes 1925–1947’ (unpublisheddissertation, Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, 1981).

5. See e.g., Leen Alaerts, Door eigen werk sterk: Geschiedenis van de kajotters and kajotsters in Vlaanderen1924–1967 (Leuven: KADOC, Het kajottershuis VZW, 2004); Walter Baeten, Gregie De Maeyer andPaul Van Wauwe (eds), Patronaten worden Chiro: Jeugdbeweging in Vlaanderen 1918–1950 (Leuven:Davidsfonds, 1993); Francoise Rosart and Thierry Scaillet, Entre jeux et enjeux: Mouvements de jeunessescatholiques en Belgique 1910–1940 (Leuven: Academia Bruylant, Arca, 2002).

6. Documents on the male CA movement in the Ghent diocese can be found in Archives of the FlemishJesuits (Heverlee), Leagues of the Sacred Heart (hereafter AFJ), COA I. Central Board 14. Verdinaso,Flemish Nationalism, Rome Pilgrimage; I. Central Board 4. Ghent, correspondence with Father Meeus;Ghent Diocesan Archives, H. Coppieters papers, 6.8 Catholic Action for men.

7. This had offices in Ghent, Antwerp, Thielt, Brussels and Hasselt.8. Patrick Pasture, ‘Kerk, natie en arbeidersklasse: Een essay over collectieve identificatie, in het bijzonder

m.b.t. de (christelijke) arbeidersbeweging in Belgie’, Bijdragen tot de eigentijdse geschiedenis 6 (1999),pp. 7–34, esp. pp. 19–20.

9. Lieve Gevers, ‘Voor God, vaderland en moedertaal: Kerk en natievorming in Belgie, 1830–1940’, Bijdra-gen tot de eigentijdse geschiedenis 3 (1997), pp. 27–53, here p. 30.

10. On the Catholic Party, see Emmanuel Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis: Partijpolitiek in Belgie1918–1940 (Leuven: Kritak, 1985).

11. Ursula King, ‘Religion and Gender: Embedded Patterns, Interwoven Frameworks’, in Teresa A. Meadeand Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks (eds), A Companion to Gender History (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004),pp. 70–85, esp. pp. 75–6.

12. Louis Vos, ‘Het dubbelspoor van de Katholieke Actie tijdens het interbellum’, in Maurits De Vroedeand An Hermans (eds), Vijftig jaar Chiroleven 1934–1984: Aspecten uit het verleden en heden van eenjeugdbeweging (Leuven: Universitaire Pers, 1985), pp. 29–52, here p. 30.

13. Gerard, ‘Cardijn, Arbeidersbeweging en Katholieke Actie’, p. 124.14. Aurora Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood: Gender Ideology in Franco’s Spain (DeKalb: North-

ern Illinois University Press, 2000), p. 141; Martin Conway, ‘The Christian Churches and Politics inEurope, 1914–1939’, in Hugh McLeod (ed.), The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 9: WorldChristianities c.1914–c.2000 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 151–78, esp. pp. 165,174.

15. Joachim Kohler, ‘Ausbruch aus dem Katholischen Milieu? Katholikinnen und Katholiken in Wurttemberg1918 bis 1933’, in Rainer Lachele and Jorg Thierfelder (eds), Wurttembergs Protestantismus in derWeimarer Republik (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 2003), pp. 122–38, esp. pp. 124, 129, 138; Laura Gellott,‘Defending Catholic Interests in the Christian State: The Role of Catholic Action in Austria, 1933–1939’,Catholic Historical Review 74 (1988), pp. 571–89; Paul Misner, ‘Catholic Labor and Catholic Action: TheItalian Context of Quadragesimo Anno’, Catholic Historical Review 90 (2004), pp. 650–74; Damberg,‘Entwicklungslinien des Europaischen Katholizismus’; Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis, pp. 251–2;Emilio Gentile, ‘New Idols: Catholicism in the Face of Fascist Totalitarianism’, Journal of Modern ItalianStudies 11 (2006), pp. 143–70.

16. Feliciano Montero, ‘L’Action Catholique espagnole et son contexte europeen: Notes pour une histoirecomparee’, Revue d’histoire de l’Eglise de France 90 (2004), pp. 259–77, here p. 263; Oscar Cole-Arnal, ‘Shaping Young Proletarians into Militant Christians: The Pioneer Phase of the JOC in France andQuebec’, Journal of Contemporary History 32 (1997), pp. 509–26.

17. This solution was introduced in 1927 for the youth movements in Wallonia and in 1928 for thosein Flanders. Emmanuel Gerard, ‘Grondlijnen van de katholieke verzuiling tussen 1914 en 1945’, in



Jaak Billiet (ed.), Tussen bescherming en verovering: Sociologen en historici over zuilvorming (Leuven:Universitaire Pers, 1988), pp. 135–69, esp. pp. 150–54.

18. Gerard, ‘Cardijn, Arbeidersbeweging en Katholieke Actie’, p. 127.19. Martin Conway, ‘Building the Christian City: Catholics and Politics in Inter-War Francophone Belgium’,

Past & Present 128 (1990), pp. 117–51, here p. 145.20. Bruno De Wever, ‘Catholicism and Fascism in Belgium’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions

8 (2007), pp. 343–52, here p. 348; Emmanuel Gerard, ‘De democratie gedroomd, begrensd en ondermijnd(1918–1939)’, in Michel Dumoulin, Vincent Dujardin, Emmanuel Gerard and Mark Van den Wyngaert(eds), Nieuwe geschiedenis van Belgie, vol. 2: 1905–1950 (Tielt: Lannoo, 2006), pp. 1,031–99, esp.pp. 1,093–4.

21. Gevers, ‘Voor God, vaderland en moedertaal’, p. 45; Conway, ‘Building the Christian City’, pp. 125–9;Gerard, ‘De democratie gedroomd, begrensd en ondermijnd’, pp. 1064, 1,075–6.

22. Gerard, ‘Grondlijnen van de katholieke verzuiling’, pp. 150–51; Conway, ‘Building the Christian City’,pp. 149–50.

23. Gevers, ‘Voor God, vaderland en moedertaal’, p. 49; Conway, ‘Building the Christian City’, p. 147.24. Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis, p. 500.25. Giovanni Hoyois, Mgr Picard: Aux origines de l’Action Catholique (Brussels: Editions de l’Action

Catholique des Hommes, 1960), p. 202.26. Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis, p. 251.27. Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis, p. 501.28. Emmanuel Gerard, ‘Sociale werken en Katholieke Actie (1914–1952)’, in Michel Cloet, Boudewijn

Janssens de Bisthoven and Robrecht Boudens (eds), Het bisdom Brugge (1559–1984): Bisschoppen,priesters, gelovigen (Bruges: Westvlaams Verbond van Kringen voor Heemkunde, 1984), pp. 515–26,here p. 522.

29. Vos, ‘Het dubbelspoor van de Katholieke Actie’, p. 43.30. AFJ, I.9. Report of a meeting of the promoters (1 March 1937). In the report of 5 June 1938 there is also

an allusion to the totalitarian image of CA.31. Gerard, ‘Cardijn, Arbeidersbeweging en Katholieke Actie’, pp. 135–6.32. Not to be confused with the Vrouwenverbond voor Katholieke Actie movement that developed out of the

Verbond van Belgische Katholieke Vrouwen (League of Belgian Catholic Women) and concentrated onmiddle-class women.

33. Pierre Harmel, ‘La Coordination dans l’AC’, Actes du VIe Congres Catholique de Malines, vol. 2:L’Expansion religieuse (Brussels: Congres Catholique de Malines, 1936), pp. 230–39, here p. 234.

34. Letter to Abbot Kothen (23 October 1936). Archives du Monde Catholique, Louvain-la-Neuve (hereafterArca), Giovanni Hoyois papers (GHP), 430.

35. Actes du VIe Congres Catholique de Malines, vol. 2, p. 267.36. Francoise Rosart and Thierry Scaillet, ‘Les mouvements d’Action Catholique et de jeunesse et l’apostolat

des laıcs’, in Jean Pirotte and Guy Zelis (eds), Pour une histoire du monde catholique au 20e siecle,Wallonie-Bruxelles: Guide du chercheur (Louvain-la-Neuve: Arca, 2003), pp. 335–69, here p. 339.

37. Hoyois, Mgr Picard, p. 217.38. Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis, p. 501; GSB, KDP, 64.9. Typed interview with Mr J. Rousere from

Ieper, n.d.39. Leuven, KADOC (Documentation and Research Centre for Religion, Culture and Society), Gaspard Van

Hecke papers (GVHP), untitled text by Karel Dubois, n.d. (late 1930s).40. Gerard, De katholieke partij in crisis, p. 506; A. Mampaey, L’Action Catholique d’apres les decrets

du Ve Concile provincial de Malines (Brussels: Novissima, 1939), pp. 129–32. CA youth organi-sations included the working-class groups Jeunesse Ouvriere Chretienne/feminine and Vrouwelijke/Katholieke Arbeidersjeugd; middle-class movements, Jeunesse Independante Catholique/feminineand Vrouwelijke/Katholieke Burgers- en Middenstandsjeugd; farmers’ movements, Jeunesse Agri-cole Catholique/feminine and Boerenjeugd Bond/Boerinnenjeugd Bond; student movements, JeunesseEtudiante Catholique/feminine and Katholieke Studentenactie/Vrouwelijke Katholieke Studerende Jeugd.Vos, ‘Het dubbelspoor van de Katholieke Actie’, pp. 37–9; Rosart and Scaillet, ‘Les Mouvements d’ActionCatholique et de jeunesse’, pp. 335–7.

41. Catholique d’Action. Manuel de l’Action Catholique des Hommes: Directives et renseignements (Brussels:Editions de l’Action Catholique des Hommes, 1939), p. 33.

42. Karel Dubois to Mgr Picard (12 November 1936), cited in Gaisse, Action Catholique des Hommes, p. 75.43. Namur Diocesan Archives, Q.13. ‘L’Action Catholique: Enquete sur la situation religieuse’ (n.d.). ‘Apos-

tolate’: undertaking in service of Christ’s mission and therefore part of the installation and growth of the



reign of God. Bart Mesotten, Van Aalmoes tot Zwitserse garde (Averbode: Altiora Averbode, 2005), p. 48.In CA discourse it alludes to the diffusion of Christian values: the influence and persuasion by an (elite)group of Christians.

44. See Hugh McLeod, Secularisation in Western Europe, 1848–1914 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000),pp. 125–6; Richard Burton, Holy Tears, Holy Blood: Women, Catholicism, and the Culture of Sufferingin France, 1840–1970 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004), p. xxi; Ralph Gibson, ‘LeCatholicisme et les femmes en France en XIXe siecle’, Revue d’histoire de l’Eglise de France 79 (1993),pp. 63–93, here p. 64.

45. ‘Verslag van het Congres van Kortrijk’, Getuigen voor Christus 11 (1939), pp. 13–15. NB: only 256 ofthe 334 parishes in the Bruges diocese returned results.

46. Karel Dubois, ‘Het MVKA en de actie voor de zondagsheiliging’, De Weg 4 (1940), pp. 103–11.47. Catholique d’Action. Manuel, p. 28.48. ‘Nos Campagnes’, Catholique d’Action 3 (1939), pp. 5–16, here p. 7.49. Constant Van Gestel, ‘De radio in dienst van Christus’, Dienen 6 (1935), pp. 166–9, here p. 166; Felix

Morlion, ‘Notre faiblesse: Le catholicisme “de conserve”’, Catholique d’Action 5 (1939), pp. 13–15, herep. 15.

50. Catholique d’Action. Manuel, pp. 89–119; O. Van Rolleghem and L. Vandenbussche, Algemeene begrippenover het Mannenverbond voor Katholieke Actie (Meenen: MVKA, 1938), pp. 15–19.

51. E.g., ‘In den dienst’, Getuigen voor Christus 2 (1938), p. 1.52. See ‘In de gelederen! Of wat is het Mannenverbond voor Katholieke Actie?’, Getuigen voor Christus 2

(1939), pp. 6–8.53. E.g., Saint George in boy scout iconography. Jean Pirotte, ‘Une ideologie en images: Prolegomenes a

l’etude de l’“art” scout catholique en Belgique francophone, 1930–1965’, Bijdragen tot de eigentijdsegeschiedenis 8 (2001), pp. 69–100, esp. pp. 82, 85.

54. Abbot Henin, ‘Conseils utiles’, Catholique d’Action 3 (1939), p. 6; ‘Conseils a des militants d’ActionCatholique’, Catholique d’Action 6 (1939), p. 2.

55. ‘Ponctualite et precision’, Bulletin technique des Comites Regionaux de l’Action Catholique des Hommes3 (1937), p. 11.

56. Gaisse, Action Catholique des Hommes, p. 123.57. GSB, KDP, 64.9. Typed interview with Reverend Vandevelde, 29 October [194?].58. Reverend J. Veys, ‘Wenken voor de kernvorming’, De Weg 1 (1935), pp. 14–17, here p. 16; Reverend J.

Veys, ‘Kernvorming’, De Weg 2 (1936), pp. 51–60, here p. 56.59. ‘Het Mannenverbond in de branding van onzen tijd’, De Weg 1 (1939), pp. 3–8, here p. 3; Veys, ‘Kern-

vorming’, p. 53; Luciaan Deschodt, ‘Opdracht en taak van den specialisatielieder’, De Weg 7 (1938),pp. 151–4, here p. 152; Morlion, ‘Notre faiblesse’, pp. 13–15.

60. ‘Specialisatie voor landbouwers’, De Weg 2 (1938), pp. 39–42, here p. 41.61. Reverend J. Veys, ‘Kernvorming’, De Weg 1 (1937), pp. 9–15, here p. 12.62. M. Vandenbussche, ‘Kernvorming’, De Weg 2 (1939), pp. 44–53, here p. 45.63. ‘Aanteekeningen bij een retraite’, De Weg 9 (1938), pp. 205–6; ‘Vreugde om het nieuwe leven’, Getuigen

voor Christus 2 (1938), pp. 3–4.64. The image of Jesus as captain predated the First World War, but increased in popularity at that time.

See Geoffrey Troughton, ‘Jesus and the Ideal of the Manly Man in New Zealand after World War One’,Journal of Religious History 30 (2006), pp. 45–60, here p. 51.

65. Reverend J. Veys, ‘Kernvorming’, De Weg 1 (1937), pp. 9–15, here p. 14.66. Gentile, ‘New Idols: Catholicism in the Face of Fascist Totalitarianism’, pp. 143–4, 156.67. M. Vandenbussche, ‘Kernvorming: Schetsen voor geestelijk onderhoud’, De Weg 1 (1939), pp. 15–25,

here p. 19.68. M. Vandenbussche and Pieter Ghyssaert, ‘Hoofdgedachte en ontwikkelingslijn in het vormingsprogramma

1939–1940’, De Weg 1 (1939), pp. 9–14, here p. 12.69. KADOC, GVHP, text by Karel Dubois (late 1930s), pp. 88–107. See also ‘De Kerk in de branding’,

Getuigen voor Christus 6 (1939), pp. 14–16.70. Marc Reynebeau, ‘Mensen zonder eigenschappen’, in Ronny Gobyn and Winston Spriet (eds), De jaren

’30 in Belgie: De massa in verleiding (Brussels: Ludion, 1994), pp. 13–73.71. See Pieter Ghyssaert, ‘Ter inleiding’, Wij dienen met Maria’s hulp 1 (1939), p. 1.72. Emilie Arnould, ‘Nouvelles methodes et esprit d’invention dans l’AC’, Actes du VIe Congres Catholique

de Malines, vol. 2, pp. 240–49, here p. 248.73. ‘Nieuws uit de katholieke wereld’, Dienen 4 (1935), pp. 117–28, here p. 125.74. S. Van Gein, ‘Pater Damiaan’, Dienen 9 (1936), pp. 271–2.



75. ‘Nieuws uit de katholiek wereld’, pp. 124–8.76. Michaela De Giorgio, ‘La bonne catholique’, in Georges Duby and Michelle Perrot (eds), Histoire des

femmes en Occident, vol. 4: Le XIXe siecle (Paris: Plon, 1991), pp. 179–80.77. Diocesaan Eucharistisch Congres. Kortrijk, 27–30 juli 1939, pp. 18, 28.78. See the ACH’s Je sers 10 (December 1937), n.p.79. See Luciaan Deschodt, ‘Heil het Mannenverbond!’, De Weg 1 (1935), pp. 4–5; A. Gillon, ‘De katholieke

radio-actie’, De Weg 1 (1935), pp. 21–5.80. Mader, Baanbrekers (Roeselare: Hernieuwen Uitgave, 1935), p. 92.81. John Beynon, Masculinities and Culture (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2002), pp. 90–92; Michael

S. Kimmel, ‘Consuming Manhood: The Feminization of American Culture and the Recreation of theMale Body, 1832–1920’, in Søren Ervø and Thomas Johansson (eds), Bending Bodies: Moulding Mas-culinities, vol. 2 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 47–76, esp. pp. 53–6; Kathryn Lofton, ‘The ManStays in the Picture: Recent Work on Religion and Masculinity’, Religious Studies Review 30 (2004),pp. 23–8.

82. E.g. Heraut, ‘In dienst van God, kerk en volk. moedig’, Getuigen voor Christus 8 (1939), pp. 1–2; Je sers1 (June 1939), n.p.

83. L.Vandenbussche, ‘Het Diocesaan Eucharistisch Congres te Kortrijk’, Getuigen voor Christus 9 (1939),pp. 8–9.

84. Mader, Baanbrekers, p. 92.85. Hoyois, Mgr Picard, p. 201.86. On all-male associations see John Tosh, ‘What Should Historians do with Masculinity? Reflections on

Nineteenth-Century Britain’, in Robert Shoemaker and Mary Vincent (eds), Gender and History in WesternEurope (London: Arnold, 1998), pp. 65–85, esp. pp. 69–70.

87. GSB, KDP, 61.4, report of the meeting of the main board of the MVKA, 20 October 1936, GSB, KDP,45.8, reports of the public meetings (e.g. in Torhout, n.d.).

88. See Roussel, ‘Roman Catholic Religious Discourse about Manhood in Quebec’, p. 147.89. Father Pierle, ‘Verhevenheid van het huwelijk’, Dienen 1 (October 1935), pp. 1–5, here p. 2.90. A. Capelle, ‘La Specialisation dans l’Action Catholique’, in Actes du VIe Congres Catholique de Malines,

vol. 2, pp. 214–20, here p. 216; Christine De Hemptinne, ‘Nieuwe jeugd en vrouwenproblemas’, inVerhandelingen van het VIe Katholiek Kongres van Mechelen, vol. 2: Godsdienstig leven en KatholiekeActie (Brussels: Katholiek Kongres van Mechelen, 1936), pp. 198–204, here p. 202.

91. KADOC, Karel Dubois papers (KDP), 39, report of the first meeting of the VVKA (2 December 1937).92. A. De Cuyper, ‘De ver-verwijderde voorbereiding tot het huwelijk’, Dienen 8 (1936), pp. 225–9, here p.

226.93. KADOC, KDP, 39, report of the first general meeting of the VVKA (13 July 1938); G. Maeyens, ‘Filmactie

en VVKA’, Wij dienen met Maria’s hulp 3 (1939), p. 23.94. Arca, GHP, 430, ‘Quelques reflections au sujet du programme de l’ACA’, p. 2.95. GSB, KDP, 8.6, speech of Reverend Vereecke (n.d.: 1939?).96. Gertrud von le Fort, De eeuwige vrouw (Antwerp: De oogst, n.d.), p. 92.97. E. P. Pilloud, ‘De gedachte van de Katholieke Kerk over de zending der vrouw’, in Johannes Hoogveld

et al. (eds), De katholieke vrouw in de moderne wereld (Brussels: N. V. Standaard-Boekhandel, 1939),pp. 127–58, here p. 154.

98. Mader, Baanbrekers, p. 101; Florimond Degrave, Ce que femme peut realiser (Tournai: Bureau des tractsd’Action Catholique, 1936) p. 32.

99. ‘De vrouwen in dienst van de filmactie’, Getuigen voor Christus 12 (September 1939), p. 14.100. Mgr Pizzardo, ‘Over het deel der vrouw in de geschiedenis van de Kerk’, Dienen 3 (1935), pp. 80–95,

here p. 86.101. Degrave, Ce que femme; P. Van de Putte, ‘De zending van de vrouw in onzen tijd’, Verhandelingen van

het VIe Katholiek Kongres van Mechelen, vol. 4: Het kristelijk huisgezin en de katholieke opvoeding in demoderne samenleving (Brussels: Katholiek Kongres van Mechelen, 1936), p. 202.

102. Bruges Diocesan Archives, B582, speech by Pieter Ghyssaert (8 September 1938).103. Degrave, Ce que femme, p. 7; Pilloud, ‘De gedachte’, p. 154.104. A. Van Steen, ‘Voorbereiding tot het familieleven’, Dienen 7 (1936), pp. 198–9.105. Bruges Diocesan Archives, B582, VVKA – communications of January 1941; L. Janssen, ‘Wie klimt er

mee naar de toppunten van de sterkte?’, Dienen 7 (1936), pp. 202–6, here p. 203.106. L. Maertens, ‘Persactie en VVKA’, Wij dienen met Maria’s hulp 2 (November 1939), p. 13.107. Henricus Lamiroy, ‘Brief aan “Wij dienen”’, Wij dienen met Maria’s hulp 2 (November 1939), p. 9;

Bruges Diocesan Archives, B582, speech by Pieter Ghyssaert (8 September 1938).



108. Maarten Van Ginderachter, ‘“Dragen en baren willen we” of “wij zijn zelf mans genoeg”? De ambivalenteverhouding tussen vrouwen en Vlaams-nationalisme tijdens het interbellum’, Revue belge de philologieet d’histoire 80 (2002), pp. 531–61, here p. 561.

109. Van Steen, ‘Voorbereiding’, p. 199.110. A. De Cuyper, ‘Voorbereiding tot het huwelijk’, Dienen 6 (1936), p. 163.111. Cecile Vanderpelen, ‘Objet ou projet, jamais sujet: La femme et la litterature catholique d’expression

francaise, 1918–1930’, Bijdragen tot de eigentijdse geschiedenis 4 (1998), pp. 43–63, here p. 43.112. E. Arts, ‘De zending van het gezin’, Dienen 1 (1936), p. 13. See also the discussion about ‘bio-power’ in

Morcillo, True Catholic Womanhood, p. 5.113. Germaine Van Caloen, ‘Algemeen inzicht in de K.A.’, in s.n., Wij dienen (Bruges: Vercruysse-Van Hove,

1941), pp. 5–8, here p. 5.114. A. De Cuyper, ‘Op het spoor der H. Familie’, Dienen 4 (1937), pp. 97–102, here p. 101.115. Father Salsmans, ‘Lichaamscultuur’, Dienen 8 (1936), pp. 230–38, here p. 235.116. Felix Morlion, ‘Liefde en schijnliefde’, Dienen 4 (1936), pp. 103–7, esp. pp. 106–7.117. GSB, KDP, 1.12, ‘Zonder zedenadel, geen volksgezondheid’ (n.d.).118. J. V. H., ‘Verfijning van het zedelijkheidsgevoel’, Dienen 8 (1935), pp. 229–36, esp. pp. 235–6. On

women’s dress and Christian identity, see Pat Starkey, ‘Women Religious and Religious Women: Faithand Practice in Women’s Lives’, in Deborah Simonton (ed.), The Routledge History of Women in Europesince 1700 (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 177–215, here p. 200; Callum Brown, Death of ChristianBritain: Understanding Secularisation 1800–2000 (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 12.

119. H. Lathouwers, ‘Meeleven met de Kerk’, Dienen 5 (1935), pp. 129–32, here p. 130.120. L. Vandenbussche, ‘Mannenverbonders! Leiders, kernleden, militanten!’, Getuigen voor Christus 10

(1939), pp. 3–4.121. ‘Specialisatie voor landbouwers’, De Weg 2 (1938), pp. 39–42, here p. 39; R. Defrancq, ‘Zedenadel in het

landbouwmilieu’, De Weg 9 (1939), pp. 255–62, here p. 255; R. Defrancq, ‘De volksvergaderingen voorlandbouwers’, De Weg 3 (1938), p. 67.

122. Dubois, ‘Het MVKA en de actie voor de zondagsheiliging’, pp. 106–8.123. Arca, GHP, 430, letter to De Ruyt (17 December 1936).124. See e.g., E. Arts, ‘Hij en Gij’, Dienen 6 (1936), pp. 167–73.125. Van Steen, ‘Voorbereiding’, pp. 198–9; KADOC, KDP, 39, letter to the members of the VVKA, October

1938.126. von le Fort, De eeuwige, p. 94.127. Van Steen, ‘Voorbereiding’, p. 198.128. KADOC, KDP, 39, letter to the members of the VVKA, October 1938. On feminism see Machteld De

Metsenaere, Michel Huysseune and Micheline Scheys, ‘Gewapend met het gewicht van het verleden:Enige resultaten van vrouwengeschiedenis in Belgie’, in Georges Duby, Michelle Perrot and FrancoiseThebaud (eds), Geschiedenis van de vrouw, vol. 5: De twintigste eeuw (Amsterdam: Agon, 1993),pp. 523–56, here p. 527; Leen Van Molle, ‘De nieuwe vrouwenbeweging in Vlaanderen, een anderelezing’, Belgisch tijdschrift voor nieuwste geschiedenis 34 (2004), pp. 359–97, esp. pp. 377–8.

129. ‘Op het front van het MVKA’, De Weg 6 (1938), pp. 144–8, esp. pp. 144–5.130. See: Vanderpelen, ‘Objet ou projet, jamais sujet’, pp. 43, 47; Anne-Marie Sohn, ‘Entre-deux-guerres: Les

roles feminins en France et Angleterre’, in Georges Duby, Michelle Perrot and Francoise Thebaud (eds),Histoire des femmes en Occident, vol. 5: Le XXe siecle (Paris: Plon, 1992), pp. 91–116, esp. pp. 92–3.Mary Louise Roberts, Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917–1927(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), esp. pp. 17–88.

131. See ‘In memoriam R. Van Brabant’, Getuigen voor Christus 7 (1939), p. 10; ‘Kernvorming’, De Weg 4(1939), pp. 103–9, esp. pp. 103–4.

132. John Tosh, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity and the History of Gender’, in Stephan Dudink, Karen Hagemann andJohn Tosh (eds), Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History (Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 2004), pp. 42–8, here p. 47; Robert W. Connell, ‘Men, Masculinities and Feminism’,Social Alternatives 16.3 (1997), pp. 7–10.

133. De Hemptinne, ‘Nieuwe jeugd’, p. 199; Van de Putte, ‘De zending’, pp. 88–9; Rainer Hering, ‘MannerbundKirche? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im religiosen Raum’, Mitteilungen der Evangelischen Arbeitsge-meinschaft fur Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 20 (2002), pp. 56–72.

134. L. Janssen, ‘Wie klimt er mee naar de toppunten van de sterkte?’, Dienen 6 (1936), pp. 174–8, here p.178.

135. Motherhood could be literally read from women’s bodies according to Helena Haluschka, Adam en Evaonder vier oogen (Heemstede: De Toorts, n.d.), p. 134, a work recommended to CA women.



136. See Mary Vincent, ‘Gender and Morals in Spanish Catholic Youth Culture: A Case Study of the MarianCongregations 1930–1936’, Gender & History 13 (2001), pp. 273–97, esp. pp. 284–6.

137. Foerster, ‘Enkele hoofdwaarheden’, p. 297.138. Henk de Smaele, ‘Een beeld van een man: Mosse en het moderne mannelijke stereotype’, Gender 9:3

(2006), pp. 5–18, esp. pp. 16–17.139. J. Pyck, ‘Op het front van de MVKA’, De Weg 1 (1936), pp. 24–32, here p. 30; s.n., ‘Op het front van het

MVKA’, De Weg 5 (1938), pp. 121–3, here p. 121.140. KADOC, KDP, 39, report of the first general meeting of the VVKA (13 July 1938). See also Mader,

Baanbrekers, p. 98.141. Mechelen Diocesan Archives, Van Roey papers, VI.7, ‘Discours du cardinal Dolci au Congres de l’Union

Internationale des Ligues Feminines Catholiques’, Rome, April 1939, p. 2; Bulletin des dirigeantes del’Action Catholique Feminine de la Bourgeoisie, 2 (1936), p. 2.

142. ‘De bisschopshulde van het MV’, De Weg 1 (1938), pp. 3–4.143. ‘Op het front van het MVKA’, p. 145; ‘Rik op huisbezoek’, Getuigen voor Christus 5 (1939), pp. 8–10.144. Ghent Diocesan Archives, H. Coppieters papers, 6.8, Katholieke Mannen-Aktie, 1938; see P. Gontier,

L’Apostolat des hommes (Paris: Charles Amat, 1910), p. 26.


Christening Masculinity? Catholic Action and Men in Interwar Belgium

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