Description
Book SynopsisIn Catholic and French Forever Joseph Byrnes recounts the fights and reconciliations between French citizens who found Catholicism integral to their traditional French identity and those who found the continued presence of Catholicism an obstacle to both happiness and progress.
Trade Review“This profitable book tackles an important topic from a rather novel perspective. Since the French Revolution it has been as easy to argue that being French means being Catholic as to argue that being Catholic is inimical or irrelevant to French identity. Byrnes presents the conflict of these points of view, its origins in rationalist Enlightenment and militant revolutionary deism, and its evolution to the present day.”
—Eugen Weber
“Few contemporary authors command the time-transcendent wisdom that enables Byrnes to place in perspective the rich detail provided by years of historical research. Couple that learning with an elegant prose style and one has not only an informative piece of scholarship but a delightful book.”
—Jude P. Dougherty Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly
“This attractive mélange of the personal and the professional has led Byrnes to produce an uncommonly good book.”
—Steven Englund Commonweal Magazine
Table of ContentsContents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Catholic and French Forever
2. Between Church and Nation
3. National Ideals and Their Failure
4. Religious and Secular Extremes
5. Piety Against Politics
6. Local Languages for the Defense of Religion
7. The Limits of Personal Reconciliation
8. Reconciliation of Cultures in the Third Republic
9. Between the Wars, Vichy, and the New Republics
10. The Nation Conundrum
Epilogue
Appendix
Notes
Further Reading
Index
