French American - Religion

Religion

Most Franco Americans have a Roman Catholic heritage (which includes most French Canadians and Cajuns). Besides the Protestant Huguenots who fled from France in the colonial era, there were some Protestants from Switzerland who came in the 19th century.

There was tension between the English-speaking Irish Catholics, who controlled the Church in New England, and the French immigrants, who wanted their language taught in the parochial schools. The Irish controlled all the Catholic colleges in New England, except for Assumption College in Massachusetts, controlled by the French, and one school in New Hampshire controlled by Germans. Tension reached a breaking point during the Sentinelle affair of the 1920s, in which Franco-American Catholics of Providence, Rhode Island, challenged their bishop over control of parish funds in an unsuccessful bid to wrest power from the Irish American episcopate.

Marie Rose Ferron was a mystic stigmatic; she was born in Quebec and lived in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Between about 1925 and 1936, she was a popular "victim soul" who suffered physically to redeem the sins of her community. Father Onésime Boyer, promoted her cult.

Read more about this topic:  French American

Famous quotes containing the word religion:

    But is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonised, the religion cannot be healthy?
    Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)

    It is manifest therefore that they who have sovereign power, are immediate rulers of the church under Christ, and all others but subordinate to them. If that were not, but kings should command one thing upon pain of death, and priests another upon pain of damnation, it would be impossible that peace and religion should stand together.
    Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)

    The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birthright to self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself.
    Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)