Recruitment to the Clergy in Nineteenth-Century France: "Modernization" and "Decline"?

8/7/2019 Recruitment to the Clergy in Nineteenth-Century France: "Modernization" and "Decline"?

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Recruitment to the Clergy in Nineteenth-Century France: "Modernization" and "Decline"?Author(s): Edward T. Gargan and Robert A. HannemanSource: Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 275-295Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/203228Accessed: 24/03/2010 03:33

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Journal of Interdisciplinary History, IX:2 (Autumn 1978), 275-295.

Edward T. Gargan and Robert A. Hanneman

Recruitment to the Clergy in Nineteenth-Century France: "Modernization" and"Decline" ? Boulard has suggested that the condition of theclergy can best be approached by specifying its recruitment suc-cess and failure during the nineteenth century. Most examinationsof problems of the clergy are in agreement that the mutations of

nineteenth-century society adversely affected the numbers ofthose being ordained.1 The consensus includes acceptance of theidea that changes involving urbanization, growth of secular edu-cation, universal military service, industrialization, the seculartrend in real wages, and government financial support or its with-drawal affected the recruitment to the clergy. For both the clergyof the nineteenth century and their historians, these changes con-stituted significant aspects of modernity within which the clergy'sability to sustain their numbers had to be worked out. This

particular view of modernity was not dependent upon the present

day debates concerning modernity and the ambiguity and ambi-vilance surrounding its value as a concept.2 But there is need to

explore whether or not the features of modernization identified

by the nineteenth-century clergy as contributing to their gainsand losses actually were correlated with the levels and rates of

Edward T. Gargan is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.Robert A. Hanneman is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology, University

of Wisconsin, Madison.I Fernand Boulard, Essor ou declin du clergefranfais? (Paris, 1950); idem, Premiers itinerairesen sociologie religieuse (Paris, 1966); Fernand Boulard and Jean Remy, Pratique religieuseurbaine et regions culturelles (Paris, 1968). All modern scholarship is dependent upon theformative work of Gabriel Le Bras, esp., etudes de sociologie religieuse (Paris, I955-I956),2 v. For an account of the experiences of France's secular clergy throughout the nineteenthcentury see Edward T. Gargan, "The Priestly Culture in Modern France," Catholic His-torical Review, LVII (1971), I-20. The best work on the clergy ordained between I895 and1939 is that of Joseph Roge, Le simple pretre (Paris, 1965). A neglected and valuable classicstudy is Joseph Brugerette, Le pretre francais et la societe contemporaine (Paris, 1933-1938),3 v.2 The character of this debate is available in Michael Armer and Allan Schnaiberg,"Measuring Individual Modernity: A near Myth," American Sociological Review, XXXVII(1972), 301-306; Alex Inkeles, "Understanding and Misunderstanding Individual Mod-ernity," in Lewis A. Coser and Otto Larsen (eds.), The Uses of Controversy in Sociology(New York, 1976).


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276 I E. T. GARGAN AND R. A. HANNEMAN

ordination. The intention of this article is to approach this ques-tion from two directions: the first by an examination of the

clergy's views on the changes occurring in nineteenth-centurysociety which they perceived as threatening to their future; thesecond by a selection of indicators which fit these conceptions(whatever their limitations) and a testing by correlation analysisof their association with ordination rates throughout the century.

At the conjuncture of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,the subjective situation of the French clergy was miserable, so-cially, psychologically, and politically. Significantly, the nine-

teenth-century clergy were in more agreement than disagreementwith their critics about the gravity of their plight. This consensusis well illustrated in Chalendar's collection of texts. Chalendarskillfully excerpts the parliamentary debates of these two crucialdecades of the Third Republic when France's deputies heatedlydiscussed the priest's experience in the seminary, his success andfailure in the parish, his relation with his bishop and the laity, hisquestionable education, his recruitment, his response to a univer-sal theological crisis, and his reaction to financial and politicalpressures. In these impassioned exchanges, the defenders of theclergy, like their opponents, did not fail to draw blood. Moresignificant than the wounds inflicted is the striking fact that thetwo parties were in accord on the origins of the clergy's malaise.3

Another source bearing witness to this collective trauma isprovided by Remond's account of the ecclesiastical congresses ofReims (1896) and Bourges (I900).4 At the first of these congressessome 700 clergymen, following the inspiration of Abbe Jules

Lemire, the Christian Democratic deputy, met to discuss theircommon condition. Their expressions of anxiety echoed, contin-ued, and extended the discussions in the Chamber as they searchedfor ways to cope with their feelings of intellectual limitation,separation from their society, and estrangement from the schoolsof the Third Republic; with their fear of the impact of their servicein the army; and with the acute stress that they encountered whenconfronting the theological questions so often grouped under the

pejorativecover of Modernism.

Courageand

hopewere not ab-

sent during their tense discussions on how to extract themselves

3 Xavier de Chalendar (ed.), Les pretres au journal officiel, 1887-1907 (Paris, 1968), 2 v.

4 Rene Remond, Les deux congres ecclesiastiques de Reims et de Bourges, 1896-19oo (Paris,I964), see esp. 178.


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FRENCH CLERGY 277

from the burden of the past and the weight of their particularpresent. Four years later, in the first year of the twentieth century,

this collective self-examination continued at Bourges. The great-est excitement during this congress was caused by the discourseof the Abbe Louis Birot (I863-I936), Vicar General for BishopEudoze-Irenee Mignot of Albi. He asked his fellow priests: "Dowe love our country? Our time?" Or, he proposed, did France'sclergy give their allegiance to another France, another time, andcountry? And he further suggested that the clergy were hypno-tized by dreams of the past, paralyzed by regrets. He concludedmore

severely:"We have not

pardonedmodern

societyfor cre-

ating itself without and even despite us." We must, he urged,love the things, institutions, and works of our time. Birot's ques-tions offered his confreres and subsequent historians essential,indispensable clues to the clergy's tribulations and trials.

Members of the hierarchy responded quickly and acerbicallyto the two congresses. The bishop of Nancy, MonseigneurCharles-Francois Turinaz, in his Les perils de lafoi et de la disciplinedans l'Eglise de France attributed all the problems to Americanism,Kantianism, and Modernism. And Monseigneur Louis Isoard ofAnnecy wrote to Rome to warn of the dangers which threatenedthe clergy from within as well as without. Members of the clergywere at once citizens, priests, and laics; but this single identityshowed a frightening tendency to dissolve, or rather to be rentasunder, into its constituent parts. Isoard also perceived a chal-lenge to the bishops' governance and the will to weaken dogmaand doctrine in order to satisfy the modern generation.5

Whatever its source, then, opinion on the state of the clergyin late nineteenth-century France was unanimous. Men hostile tothe clergy and men who defended it, priests themselves in collec-tive dialogue and bishops in dismay agreed that the situation wascritical. How did this crisis, which preceded the special troublesattending the separation of church and state of I904-1907, comeabout?

One explanation much favored by the hierarchy, by Catholicapologists, by the political

Rightin the Third Republic, and by

historians in our day, is that a hostile, modernizing, anti-clerical,semi-pagan world inevitably rejected the influence of the church

5 Ibid., 220-221, 213-214.


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and its priests. But the clergy at Reims and Bourges proposedother causes to account for the painful isolation of their lives.

Theyaccused themselves of intellectual

mediocrityand

suggestedfundamental reforms in the minor and major seminaries; theyhungered for more cosmopolitanism of mind but wondered howthey could meet the needs of the simple rural faithful withoutresorting to religious devotions that were questionable both the-ologically and psychologically. From their viewpoint, the centralproblems lay in the behavior and spirit of church and clergy.Their agony was not to be attributed to others, to an unkind orwicked world. They took the blame on themselves.

Historians who have examined the difficulties experienced bythe Catholic community in France throughout the nineteenthcentury have been in remarkable agreement in their identificationof the long-term trends which discouraged belief, practice, andrecruitment to the clergy. This convergence is especially evidentin the suggestions that industrialization, urbanization, secular ed-ucation, army experience, and the rural exodus reduced the pop-ulation of believers and shrank the pool of candidates for ordi-

nation. Each of these trends has been used as a measurable indexof the more global concept, "modernization." Nineteenth-cen-tury opinion in support of this explanation is not lacking. Thetestimony of dedicated bishops and preachers, the observations ofjournalists, and the self-analysis of the clergy give support to theconclusions drawn by historians who propose, as does Larkin,that a secular mix virtually synonymous with modernity abradedaway the landscape of a rural and fertile community of believers.6These

impressionscannot be dismissed or taken at face value. The

prevalence of these ideas does make it desirable to test quantita-tively whether the variables selected by the clergy do explain whatwas happening to their recruitment. The success or failure ofrecruitment was a sensitive indicator and recognized by all whoconcerned themselves with the clergy's fortunes and misfortunes.At a minimum, the ordination rate measures the ability of theinstitutional church to reproduce itself as an organization.

For France's clergy and hierarchy, the rise or decline in the

number of ordinations offered the clearest and most specific indexof their situation. The church's partisans interpreted all adversemovements in the number of ordinations as due largely to ex-

6 Maurice Larkin, Church and State after the Dreyfus Affair (London, 1974), 6-28.


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FRENCH CLERGY | 279

ogenous causes-to modernity.7 The number of ordinations fell

precipitously from 1830 to 1840 (from 2,357 to I,095), and al-

though it had considerably recovered by I868, each short-termdecline renewed alarm and anxiety concerning the future of the

clergy.Figure 2, showing ordinations as a proportion of all males

ages I5 to 24, depicts these moments, but at the same time, asshown in Fig. I, over the period from I840 to 1900 the absolute

number of ordinations remained about the same. It is this situationwhich encouraged simultaneously despair and hope in the clergyabout their situation and about French society. Contemporarybelief in the correlation between ordinations and the changestaking place in French society can be tested by examining thecorrelations between the levels, changes, and rates of change inthe yearly number of ordinations and the corresponding move-ments in urbanization, births, secondary and higher education,military service, state support for the church, conditions in in-

dustry, and the increase in average wealth over the period I820to I950. Remond has stressed that even the progressive clergy at

the Congress of Reims feared the industrial revolution, greatlydistrusted the city, were suspicious of capital concentration, and

regarded the rural exodus as a plague.8Urbanization and its presumed dislocating experiences were

frequently cited as an important cause of the erosion in the numberof believers, pratiquants, and men ordained. Zero order corre-lations between several measures of urbanization and the

proportion of males who were ordained into the clergy in each

yearseem to confirm the traditional

explanationfor the declines.

The correlation between ordinations and the proportion of the

population living in communes of 2,000 or more is -.09, in urban

areas of Io,ooo it is -.28, and of Ioo,ooo or more it is -.28.9 But

although this result supports the conventional wisdom regarding

7 Louis-Victor-Emile Bougaud, Le Grand peril de l'Sglise de France au XIXe siecle (Paris,1878). On Bougaud, Vicar-General of Orleans, see Gargan, Priestly Culture, 13.8 Remond, Les deux congres, 72. Similarly, he notes that at the congress a military

chaplain deploredthe conviction that "The barracks in the

eyesof

manyis a veritable

sewer" (69). The problems Catholics encountered in overcoming a mentality rooted in arural past are incisively discussed in imile Poulat's article, "La decouverte de la ville parle catholicisme francais contemporain," Annales, XV (1960), 1168-1179.9 The data sources for this and subsequent correlations are given in Appendix III.

Appendix I reports correlations calculated for 1820 to I9I0, the ones given above. Ap-pendix II presents the correlations for I820 to I950.


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Fig. 1 Number of Clergy, Number of Ordinations, and Central Government Religii820 to I950

60-' NUMBER OF CLERGYr

55-

t I I \ t \z5 / \

5 .^r I '-J

OI50~~ /e T? i 1 T I l~ ~ ~ ~ ~\ >_-o EXPENDITURE

avvr I vvv Iv v I vuv I vvv . vv , _,p / /J /''/

cZ 45I-

3J b

c1 LL0< ,

r' !, , , , . ,- CD40

/ r A . / NUMBER OF ORDINATIONS ! t/I /2

' ON

30-

IAln Rn an n IkR P 0 1

r~~~~ ~~~~~~i-5 r,4~~3n18381848 1858 1888 1870 1888 1890 1900 1910 1920

YearIwLvou ,,oV-TI


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FRENCH CLERGY 28I

the disorienting impact of urbanization on the church, the com-

munity of believers, and its clergy, there are problems with it.

The difficulty is that in order for the association between thepercentage of the population urban and the percentages of youngmen ordained to be non-negative it would demand, for example,that in the period I846 to 1936 the proportion of young men

entering the clergy double, as did the proportion of the populationwhich was in urban areas. An extrapolation to our time would

require Luther's priesthood of all believers. Even the most sincerecritic of urbanization's dechristianizing effects might be uneasy atthe prospect of a France where, in 1976, 5,000 ordinations a yearwould be necessary to match urbanization.

Intimidated by this prospect, one must ask more rigorouslywhether year to year absolute changes in urbanization were as-sociated with absolute yearly changes in ordination. That is, whenthe proportion of population urban increased during a year, didthe proportion of the target population ordained decline? Thisdiffers from the previous question in that the effects of long-runtrends are removed and concern focuses on the association beween

changes in ordinations and changes in urbanization. From thisperspective there is no association or only a slight positive asso-ciation. The correlations for absolute changes are +.22 for com-munes of 2,000 or more, +.io for places of Io,ooo or more, and+.12 for cities of oo00,000 or more. Despite an increase in urban-ization and a decline in ordination between 1820 and 1950, therewas no direct and close connection between changes in the twotrends.

The pace of urbanization was regardedas the most

disturbingaspect of the process. Contemporaries predicted that the rate of

change in urbanization unfavorably influenced the rate of ordi-nation and threatened the future of the clergy's membership morethan the actual size and density of the population in the largercities. The morally corrupting conditions of the growing cities,and especially Paris, were considered so distressing for the practiceof faith and vocations that the bishop of Peking, MonseigneurLaplace, was reported in I903 as jokingly offering to send someof his missionaries to the aid of Paris.10 But rates of change in

Io Abbe Charles Calippe (ed. Emile Poulat), Journal d'un pretre d'apres-demain (Paris,I96I), 41. Poulat is citing La Verite francaise, Jan. 12, 1903.


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282 E. T. GARGAN AND R. A. HANNEMAN

urbanization and ordination are not associated. That is, the per-centage rate of change in the proportion of the population urbanis not associated with the

percentagerate of

changein ordination.

The correlations for rates of change are respectively +.25, +.09,and +.09. The pace of urbanization in the nineteenth century hadno effect on the rate with which ordinations were increasing ordecreasing. Urbanization had little direct impact on what washappening to the recruitment of the clergy.

What of the other social trends identified with modernizationand considered as adversely affecting the clergy? France's declin-ing birthrate in the nineteenth century, for example, has, alongwith urbanization, been held responsible for difficulties in attract-ing young men to the priesthood. In both cases, historians haveproposed that secularization linked to modernization reduced thepopulation of dedicated believers making up the pool of potentialvocations. And bishops and clergy were not alone in fearing theimplications of France's declining birth rate, which was largelyattributed to secular values.

Durkheim in 1899 described France's insufficient natality as

"une maladie collective." For Durkheim the cause was "above alla moral one" which he attributed to values supportive of theembourgeoisment and secularization of French society. Thismoral defect was, he wrote, due to the weakening of the sentiment"de la solidarite sociale." Durkheim held the petite bourgeoisie (aclass from which vocations came) particularly culpable for sub-ordinating everything to their own personal ends. "It seems tohim that he does not need many children in order to be happy.On the

contrary,the burdens

theyentail can

onlyinconvenience

him in the satisfaction of his desires. And so he artificially limitshis natural fecundity." Deepening his analysis, Durkheim ob-served that this behavior was motivated by the desire "to raisethemselves above their equals, to acquire greater wealth, morepower, more esteem . . ." Durkheim clearly reinforced religiousopinion on the relation between France's demographic crisis andthe condition of the nation.11

This universally held view is not borne out when the trends

in birth rates and ordination rates from 1820 to 195o are plotted.Figure 2, comparing these rates, reveals that, although the birth

II Imile Durkheim,Journal Sociologiqtte (Paris, 1969), 238-239. Durkheim was reviewingin L'Anne Sociologique, III (I899), 558-561, Arsene Dumont's Natalite et democratie (Paris,1898).


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Fig. 2 Levels of the Birth Rate and of the Ordination Rate in France, I820 to I

80- A

70-

a 60- \ BIRTH RATE

' 20- \

0- UoII0

50 -25

i'

I40 - \0

! i I I i ! i i i i

1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 Year


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rate declined, this constant downward trend is not reflected in asimilar movement in ordinations. This revision of the conven-

tional belief is reinforced by noting that the correlation betweenthe level of the birth rate and the level of ordinations is + .50. Thecorrelation between absolute changes is +. I1, and between ratesof change only +.o9.

The lack of correlation of ordination with urbanization andbirth rates places in question the utility of constructing facilehistorical connections between the indicators of modernity iden-tified by the clergy and subsequent historians and the specific

historyof this

significant groupin

nineteenth-centuryFrench so-

ciety. This prudence is even more desirable when correlationanalysis is widened to include other facets of modernization suchas secular and public education, universal military service, gov-ernment support, average wealth, and the performance of indus-try. When these large societal changes are correlated with ordi-nations, significant doubt is raised concerning the deleteriouseffect of modernization on the numbers of the French clergy.

Throughout the nineteenth century Catholics fought to pre-serve the autonomy and independence of church-related schools.The suspicion and hostility toward the public schools' official"neutrality" in matters of religion was characteristically expressedin an 1894 sermon delivered to pilgrims returning from Lourdes."Do not be deceived my brethren," the preacher cautioned, "itis an inappropriate term which cloaks a base intention, say ratherthat they are the centers of irreligion and of atheism. The childwho only receives the instruction which they give lives without

faith, the name of God is never on his lips except to insult oroffend, the Church never sees him in its temples, the priest doesnot know him, or if he keeps some outward appearance of reli-gion, at fifteen it is all ended, and thereafter one encounters onlya blasphemer or a sectarian."12

During the Third Republic primary public education grew,but secondary education leveled off from I88o to 1919. Catholic

12 "Sermon pour un pelerinage locale. A N.-D. de Lourdes: Lourdes et la foi," L'Amidu clerge paroissial

[Supplementa l'Ami du

clerge],VIII (1896), 588. L'Ami du clerge, a

weeklybulletin founded in 1878, had a wide circulation and provides an excellent entrance intothe collective mentality of the parish clergy. For the struggle over education see MonaOzouf, L'Ecole, I'Eglise et la Republique, 1871-1914 (Paris, 1963); R. D. Anderson, Educationin France, 1848-1870 (Oxford, 1975); A. Prost, Histoire de l'Enseignement en France, 1800-1967 (Paris, 1968).


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FRENCH CLERGY | 285

schools prospered during this period, particularly the secondaryschools. Their enrollment increased both absolutely and relative

to that of public schools. This growth has been aptly summa-rized by Larkin with the observation, "By 1899, 43 percent of theentire male secondary population was taught in schools run byreligious orders." This success may explain why, although the

greater the proportion of the population receiving secondary ed-ucation the lower the level of ordinations (-.23), neither changes(+.o5) nor rates of change (+.o9) in secondary education are

notably associated with changes in ordinations. The Institut cath-

olique was created in 1875 to protect believers from the seculartemptations and dangers presumed to exist at the Sorbonne. Nine-

teenth-century believers were persistently critical of France's

higher education, but the proportion of the population receivinguniversity degrees is moderately associated with the proportionof the target population ordained (+.33). However, absolute

changes and rates of change in university degrees have little pos-itive association with ordinations (+.12 and +.11 respectively).13

If secular education threatened belief and recruitment to the

clergy, so, it was feared, did universal military service. Larkin,commenting on the shock to the community of believers, writes,"Even more disruptive was military service, which became quasi-universal following the legislation of I872 and I889."14 Yet,although the proportion of the population that was in France's

army and navy is negatively associated with the proportion of

young men who were ordained (-.40), the changes and rates of

change in the trends are not associated (+.Io and +.12 respec-

tively). The proportion of the population in the army at any onetime is not an ideal measure of the impact of the military in

secularizing society, but it is notable that the proportion of the

population that was in service did not markedly increase in the

years noted by Larkin (see Fig. 3).As the nineteenth century closed, the cumulative results of

France's economic growth over the century supported the Belle

Epoque atmosphere. Catholic believers however, more closelyidentified with

agrarianand rural

France,found themselves to be

13 Larkin, Church and State, 83, citing Robert Anderson, "The Conflict in Education,"in Theodore Zeldin (ed.), Conflicts in French Society (London, 1970), 59. On the history ofthe Institut catholique see Alfred Baudrillart, L'Institut catholique (Paris, I930).14 Larkin, Church and State, 20.


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Fig. 3 Military Personnel per Ioo,ooo Population and Ordinations per ioo,ooo M

2500

I

2000 - I

ORDINATION RATE

o00T

1500-

400'

I,

,I"^A'1!'-"

'*'\H'I 1

1000\MILITARY PARTICIPATION RATE

400 , I i , i t I I I1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920

Year


14/22

FRENCH CLERGY 287

outsiders in this changing situation, a feeling compounded by theThird Republic government's hostility to the church, which was

linked to it by the Concordat of I80I-I802. When the economybegan to take off in 1895, believers and their church were headedfor the crisis that began with the Dreyfus affair (1894) and endedwith the separation of church and state (I906). To believers inFrance of le Republique radicale, all aspects of modernity seemedto be coalescing to challenge belief and the existence of the church.Yet, when relevant variables indicating the social changes thatwere under way are correlated with the increase and decline in

ordinations, the correlations do not strongly support the fearsexpressed by the faithful.

Correlations between the levels, changes, and rates of changein ordination, industrial production, and real wages indicate thatconventional explanations linking the impact of developments inthese spheres with faltering mobilization of candidates for thepriesthood are problematic.15 Whatever the attractiveness of thepriesthood, it was not detrimentally affected by the increases inthe standard of living for wage earners-a development viewedas part of the secular process threatening vocations.

The precise impact of structural changes in French society onordinations and the church's relations with French society are noteasily confirmed. But by the close of the nineteenth century, thepolitical estrangement of believers from the Third Republic (de-spite Leo XIII's call in 1892 for ralliement) was leading to theseparation of church and state and the end of the state's respon-sibilty for the support of the church. This traumatic moment has

understandably been taken as an obvious explanation for the de-cline in vocations to the priesthood. This explanation was and hasbeen strengthened by the view that throughout the nineteenthcentury, when the state's support of the culte lessened, so did thenumbers of those entering the clergy. Figure I, which includesthe number of clergy, number of ordinations, and governmentexpenditures for the church, indicates that in the period I880 toI905 a serious decline in state support had little apparent effect onthe number of ordinations. And somewhat

surprisingly,the dra-

matic growth in government expenditures for the church's needsin the period 183I to I868 did not significantly increase ordina-

15 These results are presented in Appendices I and II.


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tions. After the separation of church and state and the end of allsupport ordinations did drop precipitously. But the previous

trends in times of high and low support indicate that factors otherthan financial ones were important in the I906 episode.Although constraints and opportunities offered by the state's

frugality or generosity did not overtly affect the numbers ofordinations, political crises did expose the vulnerability of thechurch to the changes in the political order. A steep decline inordinations followed the July Revolution of 1830 (see Fig. I).This occurred again from the eve of the Franco-Prussian war, thecollapse of the Second Empire, and the Paris Commune until therepublican synthesis of I879-I882. Similarly, there was a notice-able drop in ordinations in the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair, adecline which preceded and then accompanied the separation ofchurch and state. The consequences of the revolution of 1830 arereadily explained by the bitter opposition to the union of Throneand Altar during the Restoration. This most detested relationshipwas ended by the July days, but all subsequent governments ofthe nineteenth century arranged a detente which in one form or

another accomplished what the Restoration arrangement did soblatantly. This was merely political good sense whatever thepolemics, as long as the Concordat and Ordinance bound the twoinstitutions together. Yet every change in the form of governmentwas unsettling and clouded the future for those in the church whohad worked out the existing and now threatened arrangement.Here perhaps, is the reason why the primacy of politics assertsitself at such moments.16

I6 Gabriel Le Bras, commenting in 1963 on a discussion of the religious factors in France's

foreign policy, offered reservations about the common assumption that the separation ofChurch and State was absolute in contemporary France. His remarks can equally serve toillustrate the pragmatism constant in the history of this relationship. "One statement inthe fine presentation of my colleague surprised me: that France is in a regime of the

separation of the Churches and the State. This I learned for the first time here today. Forno bishop can be nominated in France without the approval of the government: the Popenever acts without this approbation. There have been about twelve rejections in the lasttwelve years and the Holy See has never persisted in tile nomination. The Holy See can-not even change the circonscription of the dioceses. Is it possible that a congregationwould dare transfer its mother house to Rome without

askingthe consent of the

govern-ment? Is the ambassador at Rome in order never to discuss anything with the Holy Fatheron national questions? We can ask ourselves if we are not in the best of concordat regimes,while we have limited concordats, aide-memoires, or precise agreements with the govern-ment on particular points. I do not betray any secret of my modest function in telling youthis and I could add more." Remond (ed.), Forces religieuses et attitudes politiques dans laFrance contemporaine (Paris, I965), 339.


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FRENCH CLERGY | 289

The political trauma, however, was never the sole issue forthose concerned with the success and failure of the church and its

clergy. The conferences of the clergy at Reims and Bourges rec-ognized this when they posed their problem in terms of their

relationship to French society. The analysis of this relationshiphas suggested that the perceived vulnerability of the church to thesocial changes is not supported by the actual impact of the alter-ations in French economy and society.

The changes in nineteenth-century France characterized byshifting urban and rural populations, the educational compositionof French society, industrial growth, military participation, thebirth rate, and the growth in real wealth are all largely uncorre-lated with the rate of ordinations. The conventional wisdom at-

tributing the clergy's difficulties to the social changes identifiedwith modernization is not sustained by the test of correlation

analysis. This test confirms the need for restraint in attributing tomodernization the problems besetting France's clergy. This iswhat the Abbe Louis Birot suspected when, in I900, he assertedto his distressed fellow clergy, "We have not pardoned modern

society for creating itself without and even despite us." 17The low levels of the correlations in this inquiry require

another explanation suited to the findings. The correlations illus-trate a situation where, despite the anxiety of the clergy, the

changes in their society interpreted as damaging to the mainte-nance of their numbers cannot easily be held accountable for the

clergy's condition. In fact, despite the increases in urbanizationand educational attainment, the experience of universal military

service,modest industrial

growthand

accompanying changesin

real wages, the government's granting or withdrawal of financial

support, and the decline in the birth rate, the clergy maintainedan essential stability in both numbers and recruitment. The fluc-tuations that exist are not correlated with the rate of changes in

significant aspects of nineteenth-century French society. Yet the

anxiety of the clergy was an increasing one and their analysis has,in the main, been historically accepted.

The disparity between the real situation of the clergy, that isthe stability of their numbers, and that perceived adds a dimensionto the stress that characterized the French clergy's entrance intothe twentieth century. The clergy's ability to recruit sufficient

17 Remond, Les deux Congres, 178.


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numbers of candidates for ordination may in part be due to thefact that many of the actual social changes in nineteenth-centuryFrance, such as urbanization, were modest and incremental incharacter, less traumatic and dislocating than perceived. In hisfundamental essay, "Paradoxes of the French Political Commu-nity," Hoffmann has suggested that, in the century after the FrenchRevolution and particularly from 1878 to 1934, France created a"republican synthesis" made possible by a stalemate society. Thiswas a society in which drastic social changes were absent, creatingwhat he terms "the paradox of immobility." And he further

arguesthat this

systemmade

possible "pitched ideologicalbattles"

that did not threaten the social balance. It is possible that this"immobility" also enabled the clergy to debate so intensely theirpast, present, and future at a time when immobility characterizedtheir actual situation.18

From this paradoxical viewpoint the data and analysis sup-port the picture of a clergy statistically holding their own, butconstantly threatened by a reversal of their fortunes. Historiansof modern France are not uncomfortable with the idea that itshistory is ruled by paradox. Perhaps this rule also governed thesituation of France's clergy. They sustained their numbers innineteenth-century France, but their anxiety about their situationdestroyed any confidence in this achievement; instead they con-structed a pessimistic self-fullfilling prophecy that would be re-alized in the twentieth century.

18 Stanley Hoffmann, "Paradoxes of the French Political Community," in Stanley Hoff-mann, et al., In Search of France (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 1-117. The paradoxes ofFrench historical experience form the organizing principle of Theodore Zeldin's brilliantFrance 1848-1945: Ambition, Love and Politics (Oxford, I973), I.


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FRENCH CLERGY | 291

Appendix I: Correlations for I820 Through I9I0

ORDINATIONS AS A PROPORTION OF MALES AGES I5-241

Percent of the populationin communes of 2,000or more

Percent of the populationin places of Io,ooo ormore

Percent of the populationin places of oo,ooo0 ormore

Live births as a propor-tion of the population

Percent of the populationin public lycees andcommunal colleges

Percent of the populationreceiving universitydegrees

Percent of the populationin the military

Index of industrial

productionIndex of real wagesCentral government ex-

penditure for religion

LEVELS ABSOLUTE

CHANGES

-.09 +.22

-.28

-.28

+.50

-.23

+.33

- .40

-.33

- .49

- .34

+.10

+.12

+.11

+.05

+.12

+.O10

+ .09

-.04

+.14

I Pearsonian zero-order product moment correlation coefficients between lev-els of each variable, absolute

changesin each, and rates of

changein each. In

many cases data are not present for every year for both variables. These cases,and the sources of data, are dealt with in Appendix III.

All correlations reported are between the ordinations measure attime t plus six years and other measures at time t. This lag maximizesthe level correlations in the direction expected from conventional expla-nations. Lags from zero to ten years were explored and there is sub-stantial stability in the level correlations across the various lags. Whenthe number of ordinations declines considerably in any one year thisdecision does not reflect a situation where large numbers of seminariansleave on the eve of ordination. It is more probable and historicallyaccurate to presume that the decision to leave or not to enter seminariesoccurred some years prior to a specific ordination class.

Three types of correlations are reported. Where Y is the number of

RATES OF

CHANGE

+.25

+ .09

+.09

+.09

+.09

+.I I

+.12

+.09

-.03

+.09


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ordinations as a proportion of all males ages 15 to 24 and X is any ofthe other indicators, and t is time, these types are defined as follows:

Levels are the correlations between Xt and Yt+6. Absolute changes arecorrelations between Xt+1 - Xt and Yt+7 - Yt+6. Rate of changecorrelations are between (Xt+l - X6)/Xt and (Yt+7 - Yt+6)/Yt+6. In somecases data were not available for each year from 1820 through I950 andthe years for which this is the case are reported in Appendix III. Theabsence of some data at particular points in time may result in someunavoidable biased representations of the associations for time series.The number of personnel in the military has been deliberately removedfrom the calculation during the war years. The inclusion of these yearsseriously distorts the variation in the military personnel measure and

tends to overrepresent wartime conditions in the calculation of the cor-relation coefficient.

Where missing data have been replaced by linear interpolation, aswith the urbanization data, the variance of the distribution of absolutechanges may be understated slightly, working against the hypothesisof a significant association between absolute changes in itself andordinations.


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FRENCH CLERGY | 293

Appendix II: Correlations for I820 Through I950

ORDINATIONS AS A PROPORTION OF MALES AGES I 5-241

LEVELS ABSOLUTE RATES OF

CHANGES CHANGE

Percent of the population -.47 +.04 -.09in communes of 2,000or more

Percent of the population -.56 +.Io +.07in places of io,ooo ormore

Percent of the population -55 +.o6 +.04

in places of 1oo,ooo ormoreLive births as a propor- +.60 -.06 +.01

tion of the populationPercent of the population -.43 +.oI -.o0

in public lycees andcommunal colleges

Percent of the population +.30 -.oo -.09receiving universitydegrees

Percent of the population -.45 +.05 +.07in the military

Index of industrial -.56 +.I4 +.04production

Index of real wages -.5I +.03 +.o1

Central government ex- +.53 +.07 +.oipenditure for religion

I See footnote I to Appendix I.

Appendix III: Sources for Time Series

The number of ordinations from I820 to 1950 is from Tableau XIV,"Total annuel des ordinations (clerge diocesain) pour la France metro-

politaine," Boulard, Essor ou declin du clerg franfais? 465.Two time series are taken from Brian R. Mitchell, European Histor-

ical Statistics 1750-1970 (New York, 1975). The number of births perIo,ooo population is in ibid., o06, 121, and is drawn from various An-

nuaire statistique de la France volumes. Data are present for each year fromI820 to I950. The second series is the index of industrial productionpresented in ibid., 355-358. Data are present for each year except 1914through I918 and 1939 through I941. The data for 1919 and later yearshave been rescaled so that all figures are expressed to I913 as the base


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294 | E. T. GARGAN AND R. A. HANNEMAN

year. For the period 1820 to I913, Mitchell draws his data from F.Crouzet, "Essai de construction d'un indice annuel de la productionindustrielle franpaise au XIXe siecle," Annales, XXV (1970), 56-99.From 1918 onward the data are taken from various volumes of theAnnuaire statistique de la France.

The proportion of the population living in communes of 2,000 ormore persons is taken from Tableau III, "Populations totale, urbaine,rurale et agricole. Recensements de 1846 a 1962," in theAnnuaire statistiquede la France: Resume retrospecttf 1966 (Paris, 1966), 23. Linear interpola-tions were used between the real data points of I846, I851, I856, i86i,i866, 1873, I876, I88I, I886, I891, I90I, 1906, I9II, 192I, I926, 1931,I936, 1946, and I954. No data prior to 1846 are used in the calculationof the correlations.

The proportion of the population living in places of 1o,ooo or more

persons is taken from Arthur S. Banks, Cross-Polity Time-Series Data

(Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 68-69. Data are given for each year from1820 to I913 and from I946 to I950. However, most data points arelinear interpolations or extrapolations from the data points of 1815,I851, i86i, 1891, 1911, 1946, and 1954. As with other urbanization

data, this means of estimating data may introduce a slight bias againstfinding correlations different from zero in the change or rate of changecalculations.

Theproportion

of thepopulation living

inplaces

ofIoo,ooo

ormore persons is from Tableau IV, "Distribution des communes et deleur population suivant le nombre de leurs habitants. Recensements de

1836 a 1962," in the Annuaire statistique de la France 1966, 25. Linear

interpolation was used between the real data points of i856, I86i, i866,1872, I901, I906, 1911, 1921, 1926, 1931, 1936, 1946, and 1954. Nodata prior to 1856 are used in the calculation of correlations.

The proportion of the population in public secondary education istaken from two sources. The years 1820 to 1830 inclusive are linear

interpolations between data given for the end-point years in Tableau VII,

"Enseignement secondaire public," in the Annuaire statistique de la France1951 (Paris, 1951), 57-58. For the years 1831 through I880 data aretaken from Tableau 219, "Mouvement de eleves des lycees et colleges,"in the Annuaire statistique de la France 1893 (Paris, 1893), 274. From i88ito 1947 data are from the Annuaire statistique de la France 1951. Between1820 and 1830 inclusive, only male students in the lycees and collegesare counted, after I830 both males and females are included. Beginningwith i88i the "cours secondaires de jeunes filles" are included.

There were no data found on the number of university degreesgranted annually in France from 1820 through 1849. From I850 through

I899, data are taken from the Annuaire statistique de la France, XX, andinclude academic and medical degrees. From I900 through 1939 data arefrom A.S.F. 1939, Tableau X, 30*. Incomplete data for 1907, 1914,I916, 1917, and I9I8 are not used in the calculations. Data for I945

through 1950 were taken from the A.S.F. 1966.


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FRENCH CLERGY | 295

Central government expenditure for the clergy was collected fromtwo sources. For the period 1820 through I880 data were taken fromCharles

Nicolas,Les

Budgetsde la France

depuisle commencement du XIXe

siecle (Le Havre, 1882). From 1881 through I9I0 data were taken from"Execution de budget. Classement des depenses par grandes catagories,"Annuaire statistique de la France 1966, Tableau III A, 490-491. After I9I0,there were no separately budgeted central government expenditures forthe clergy. The figures used refer only to the central government anddo not include some rather small amounts of expenditure by Depart-ments for the clergy.

The number of military personnel was drawn from Nicolas, Lesbudgets de la France, 304-305, for the years 1822 through 1869 and 1872

through i880. The years of the Franco-Prussian war had available data,but were excluded from the analysis as being atypical and particularlymisleading in the change and rate of change correlation calculations.From i88i through I9Io, data were taken from the Annuaire statistiquede la France: Resume retrospectif 1926. Again the years of and around thewar were excluded, and the next data were for the period I921 through1934, being drawn from the Annuaire statistique de la France 1939. Theyears of World War II were excluded and the years 1947 through 1950are from the Annuaire statistique de la France 1966.

The real wages measure is taken from E. H. Phelps Brown with

Margaret H. Brown, A Century of Pay: The Course of Pay and Productionin France, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States ofAmerica, 1860-1960 (London, I968), 432-435. Series 3 of Appendix 3was used with a slight modification so as to base all years on I890-99 = Ioo. The resulting series is the index of "estimated average annualwage-earnings in current francs," divided by an index of the cost ofliving in Paris. Data are present for I860 through 1913, 1924 through1938, and 1949 to 1950.

Recruitment to the Clergy in Nineteenth-Century France: "Modernization" and "Decline"?

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