Origins of French Christian Democracy
In 1876, for the first time, the Republicans held a majority in the House of Deputies. One year later, they won the 1877 elections against President Mac-Mahon, following the 16 May 1877 crisis. Mac-Mahon wanted restoration of the monarchy. After his resignation in 1879, the Republicans controlled the legislative and executive powers.
The Catholic Church mistrusted the Republic and the ideas of the French Revolution, as well as popular sovereignty, which questioned the superiority of the spiritual power over the temporal. For this reason, it supported all the conservative governments of the 19th century, notably Mac-Mahon and his policy of "moral order".
In 1892, in his encyclical Au Milieu Des Sollicitudes, Pope Leo XIII advised the French Catholics to rally to the Republic. The previous year, another encyclical, Rerum novarum had denounced capitalistic society and the socialist ideology, and advocated creation of Catholic popular organizations. In 1894, students founded Le Sillon (The Furrow). Its leader, Marc Sangnier, campaigned for spiritual values, democracy and social reforms. It represented the progressive wing of French Catholicism. But it was dissolved in 1910 on an order from the papacy.
At the beginning of the 20th century, many organizations appeared: the Christian Workers Youth, the Christian Agricultural Youth, and the French Confederation of Christian Workers. In 1924, the Popular Democratic Party (Parti démocrate populaire or PDP) was founded, but it remained a small centre-right party. However, the Christian Democratic ideas arose in intellectual circles. Emmanuel Mounier founded the review Esprit (mind or spirit) which denounced fascism and passivity of the Western democracies. In the paper L'Aube (the dawn), Francisque Gay and Georges Bidault shared similar theses. These circles participated actively in the anti-Nazi underground Resistance during the Second World War.
Read more about this topic: Popular Republican Movement
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