L'église française

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote a provocative article in The Week here in which he ponders whether France is undergoing the beginnings of a Christian, and specifically, Catholic revival. On the whole, the article augments feelings and suspicions that I felt living in France for a brief time this past year. For all of our own problems that need our attention, American Catholics still tend to look with a rather unabashed smugness mixed with pity when we gaze across the Atlantic at our European coreligionists. "Well, at least we're not Europe" we are wont to say. On the face of things, I understand the sentiment. Across the continent, church attendance numbers dwell in depths that a US bishop would find flabbergasting if they occurred in his diocese. And, the overt and sometimes militant secularism of the European Union (and many French politicians) would make the ACLU blush.

And yet... Europe is under a spiritual malaise. Everyone with two eyes and a brain can deduce as much. The emptiness of consumerism and sexual libertinism have yielded only rotten fruit: an aging population that limps along with the tired economy in tow. These days, "the sick man of Europe" is Europe itself. The recent tragedies in Paris and elsewhere underscore another salient point: there is another force jockeying for the soul of Europe, and it ain't as pretty as Chartres, that's for sure.

So, before going to France, I was expecting a windswept religious landscape. My previous travels in Germanic Europe yielded such an impression, to be honest. Yet, France was different. I attended mass in Paris every Sunday I was there, and so did everyone else in Paris, it seemed. A few examples:

The nave of St. Germain L'Auxerrois

St. Germain l'Auxerrois: This historic church, which faces the Louvre in the heart of the 1st Arrondissement, was my usual church of preference. Many of my ancestors worshiped here, so I felt it only appropriate that I should honor their memory by doing the same. I typically attended the 9:45 Extraordinary Form Mass (i.e. the pre-Vatican II traditional Latin Mass). The congregation often numbered around 250 people. There were people of all ages and descriptions. Yet, this was not a tourist parish by any means. These were Parisians. The community was not as tight-knit as your average American parish, but it was obvious there was a vibrancy there. The priest was of middle age and, to the best of my French, seemed very orthodox in his preaching. He had one sermon that I found particularly interesting - he enumerated the goodness of God's plan for the family and explained how gay marriage and divorce damage our ability to truly love one another. Have you ever heard that from an American Catholic pulpit? I haven't. And, despite the parish offering the traditional mass, it is not what I would call a particularly conservative or traditional parish.

St. Cécile-St. Eugene: This parish is the heart of the Parisian traditionalist community. It was what you would expect in that regard: reverent liturgy, solid preaching, traditional devotions, etc. And it was packed. Always. Little mantilla'd old ladies and young professionals alike filled the pews. Yes it is probably an outlier, but an encouraging one nonetheless.

St. Laurent: I lived across from this small Gothic church at the heart of the 10th Arrondissement. The neighborhood is working class with a decent immigrant population and a certain hipster element. This church offered a mass that was what I would call the equivalent of your average American mass: some organ, some guitar, some incense, the exclusive use of the vernacular, et cetera. Again, the church was packed. The congregation was much more diverse than the other two churches, but I certainly would not call it an immigrant parish. I sat beside a young couple who looked like they had left the hipster capital of Brooklyn and somehow had gotten lost in northeast Paris. In the pew in front of me was a middle-aged man with his two young daughters. Beside them was an older woman. Behind me were two women of central African descent. The priest was quite young and preached about sacrifice and rejection of worldly comforts for the sake of the kingdom. In France? Where worldly comforts are part of the national identity? C'est possible?!

Three anecdotes do not a trend make, but three anecdotes that bucked my preconceptions so intensely do give one pause. One can speculate on causes and possible effects of this situation, but there are a few things that an American audience should understand when looking at French religiosity and society in general - things I was quite clueless about. The first and most important is that the Church in France has been through everything, sometimes twice. At the beginning of the last century, the State literally seized all of the Church's property throughout the country. Schools were closed, convents sold off, etc. This was in 1907. Today, in 2015, the government still owns every church property in the country. This is but one example. The atrocities committed against Catholics during the Revolution in the 18th Century and the Commune in the 19th would fill volumes. The result, in my opinion, has been that those who wish to remain Catholic are truly committed. They have nothing to gain from it socially or politically (occasionally, quite the opposite has been true historically). 

The other thing to keep in mind, on the more political side of things is that what James Joyce said of the Church is true in France: "Here comes everybody." The political landscape in France is far more fragmentary than it is in the US. You have a devoted Communist Party. You have not one but three monarchist movements of varying popularity. You have socialists, social democrats, nationalists, and everyone in between. Into this milieu, a vocal or vibrant Catholicism does not seem out of place - it is just one more movement standing by its principles. The Church is not pressured into political correctness because in France, by and large, there is no political correctness.

Realists will charm in at this point to say that mass attendance and seminary enrollment is still abysmal. I make no argument with that. But, I will say that the commitment of those who remain Catholic in France could change the country. We need only think of some of the fairly recent French saints to see how a few people restored - if briefly - the spirituality of their nation: John Vianney, Therese of Lisieux, Catherine Laboure, etc. Europe is not hopeless, and neither is France.

Men of Letters

I am almost finished reading The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by popular historian David McCullough. It has been a fascinating look at the "long Nineteenth Century" in Paris, during which time it was the undisputed world capital of the arts, science, and culture (and maybe still is). The author follows the lives of many notable Americans who made long stays in Paris, including such luminaries as James Fenimore Cooper, Samuel Morse, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, among many, many others.

An interesting thing to consider about the book, which deals about day-to-day existence as well as wider historical happenings, is that the primary source material is from personal letters and journals. Though only a few were "writers", everyone was constantly writing. Of course, it was out of necessity in those days, but it gives me pause to consider how my generation will be reconstructed by historians. We are, generally, not writing very much. At least, not in any intimate or personal way to one another. The phone call has generally replaced the letter for such needs. But, though they may serve a similar purpose, they are not perfectly analogous. First, the letter is permanent, while the phone call (apart from some clandestine word-for-word transcription being generated by the NSA) is transient. Second, the letter, as a literary form, can pack in much extemporaneous information that is notably absent from most phone calls. Poetic descriptions of the weather, or musings on the culture that one is immersed in, are predictably absent from most phone calls that I am apart of.

We might then suppose that the internet, in all its myriad social media platforms, may be the other replacement for the letter. But, as a public forum, it is necessarily deficient in the exact opposite ways as a phone call. The internet is public, and largely permanent (though it feels transient), so a degree of intimacy and personality is inherently missing. We hurl our thoughts out into the abyss on the internet (I am doing so now) without much thought about the person-to-person conversations or discoveries that they may engender. And, when they do engender discussion, the case is that it often rapidly devolves into nonsensical shouting (have you read the comments on anything, ever?). No, the letter, with its one intended recipient, has a way of provoking thoughtful response that no blog or Facebook post ever will.

So, that leaves me to my original question, I suppose. How will we be discovered by generations yet nonexistent? Will they google us and find our blogs? Will they be able to read our Facebook messages and updates to get a sense of what we were thinking and doing? Will they raid the digital archives for our Instagram photos? And, will they, when all of this is said and done, come away with only a shallow impression of our existence - as shallow as we are accused of being by other generations for delving so deeply into the fleeting things of the digital age?

Puritan Connections

Though I am at most a fourth generation American citizen, my family's history on the North American continent goes back much further - some 400 or so years - via the French presence in the province of Quebec. The settlers of Nouvelle France were a "priest-ridden people", which has ensured that copious parish records have survived through the ages. Hence, that portion of my family is rather well documented all the way back to those intrepid souls who left the fishing villages of Normandy in the early 1600s. There is, however, an interesting hiccup in this rather uniform narrative of French ancestry. It turns out I have one or two Puritans lurking in the family tree. The tale of John and Hannah Swarton is the bizarrely intriguing link between Puritan New England and French Montreal.

John Swarton hailed from Jersey, one of the Channel Islands - British territories that lie off the northern coast of France. In the chaos of the English Civil War, King Charles II fled Britain for the continent, perhaps stopping off at Jersey along the way. In any event, John Swarton joined the military forces of Charles II in Flanders (modern day Belgium) and was a part of the army that helped restore Charles to the throne in 1660. The historical record is relatively silent until 1687 when John Swarton was awarded a grant of fifty acres in North Yarmouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (North Yarmouth is now a suburb of Portland, Maine).

Swarton had married a certain Hannah Hibbard in Beverly, Massachusetts on January 6, 1671, meaning he must have emigrated from England rather soon after Charles' restoration (most likely during the reign of the Catholic King James II before the Protestant resurgence of power under William and Mary during the Glorious Revolution in 1688). Hannah Hibbard was the daughter of Robert Hibbard, a weaver's apprentice from Salisbury, England, who had settled in Salem, Massachusetts, sometime before 1640. The Hibbards were an interesting family in their own right since they were distantly descended from King Edward I through the Earls of Devon - but that is a story for another time.

John Swarton and Hannah Hibbard were living in North Yarmouth during a tumultuous period of colonial history known as King William's War (the colonial outgrowth of Continental European wars spawned by the Glorious Revolution and the accession of William and Mary to the English throne). The French and their Native American allies were eager to stop English encroachment symbolized by the new settlements around Fort Loyal (the site of modern-day Portland). The French mounted a raid on those settlements in 1689, which was repelled by forces under Major Benjamin Church. The next May, the French returned and captured the settlements and killed many of the settlers - including John Swarton. The rest were taken as prisoners and hauled off to Quebec.

Hannah Swarton was, by all accounts, a very pious Puritan woman. She kept a journal of her captivity that was published in 1697 as an appendix to a book by prominent Puritan minister Cotton Mather entitled "Humiliations Followed With Deliverances". Hannah and her three surviving children, Mary, Samuel, and Jasper, were pressured to convert to Catholicism while captives in Quebec. Hannah Swarton described the ordeal thusly: "The lady, my mistress, the nuns, the priests, the friars and the rest set upon me. . . to perswade me to turn Papist." She remained steadfast and was eventually allowed to return to Massachusetts Bay, though her children did not accompany her.

Her daughter, Mary Swarton, stayed in Quebec and eventually married John Lahaye, an Irishman from Tullow. He was raised Catholic, despite having a Protestant mother, but he later strayed into Puritanism before finally being readmitted to the Catholic Church prior to his marriage:

"On Monday, 19 March 1696, Jean Lahe born in 1670 at Tollo in Ireland of the marriage of Thomas Lahé, Catholic, and of Catharine Williams, Protestant, and baptized in his country in the Catholic religion & later having professed the Puritan religion until last year, when he was taken in the month of July among the Flemish of Corlar and living now in the service of M. le Ber, Merchant, solemnly made abjuration of heresy [renounced heretical ideas - i.e. Puritanism] into the hands of Mre. Henri Antoine Meriel, Priest of the Seminary of Ville Marie, authorized to receive it by M. François Dolie priest, Grand Vicaire etc. And this in the presence of M. Yves Priat, priest of said Seminary of Ville Marie [Montreal] and of several others." (Signed by all herein named.)

The pair were married in Montreal on the 9th of Septermber, 1697, and eventually had eleven children (two of which I directly descend from - yes, that means that distant cousins married at some point along the way - it happens).

An interesting anecdote regarding Mr. Lahaye regards him and another English captive attempting to counterfeit money. The charge was sent in a letter to King Louis XIV, who dropped all charges because of the "great service he has already rendered to the colony" and because the bills "were so badly made, no one could've been deceived."

 *     *     *

I'm unsure whether this story has a moral or not, but it is always interesting to look back at the unfathomably large tapestry of consequences woven by our actions. We cannot see all the ends of our decisions. If one little circumstance of these events had been slightly different, I would not be here as I am today. A tiny genetic part of me comes from Mary Swarton and John Lahaye. I would not have that part if Yarmouth had never been attacked, or had the Swartons all been killed instead of captured, or had John Swarton never bothered to leave the Isle of Jersey with Charles II. That's the fascinating thing about history and about genealogy in particular - you are looking at the story of yourself.


Source: New England Captives Carried to Canada between 1677-1760 During the French and Indian Wars by Emma Lewis Coleman

The Daily Niblet: A Burial at Ornans

"A Burial at Ornans" by Gustave Courbet

We discussed this painting today in my Honors Humanities class, and how it showed an ordinary scene - a burial - on a scale that was typically reserved for grand historical paintings. This painting was completed in 1850, and marked the transition in French art from Romanticism to Realism. I rather like it.

The Daily Niblet: Notre Dame de Fourviere

A bit of Catholic eye candy for you: the interior of the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere in Lyon, France. This church is an interesting blend of Gothic and Byzantine styles, a combination that seems a bit tricky, but which is accomplished nicely in this particular example. It is a close ecclesiastical cousin to the magnificent (if a bit ill-proportioned) Basilica of the Sacre Coeur in Paris: both were constructed during a similar timeframe in a similar blend of styles - though the Sacre Coeur tends a bit more toward the Romanesque. Notre Dame de Fourviere commands a fine vista over the city of Lyon and the Rhone River. More information - and photographs - can be found here.

The Daily Niblet: Jesus, the first Gothic architect

Yes, candid reader, I have resurrected the "daily niblet" as a way to post some more or less intriguing - but brief - errant thoughts without bogging you down in more than three paragraphs or so. Expect meatier niblets than those of the past, but nothing more filling than your average appetizer. Firstly, from the great thinker G.K. Chesterton:

"Christ prophesied the whole of Gothic architecture in that hour when nervous and respectable people (such people as now object to barrel organs) objected to the shouting of the gutter-snipes of Jerusalem. He said, "If these were silent, the very stones would cry out." Under the impulse of His spirit arose like a clamorous chorus the facades of the mediaeval cathedrals, thronged with shouting faces and open mouths. The prophecy has fulfilled itself: the very stones cry out." - Orthodoxy, Ch. 7 The Eternal Revolution

Pictured below is the great Cathedral of Strasbourg, France.

Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Libraries, like churches, are unique among structures in that they contain our collective culture. Churches, of course, are houses for our sacred culture, passed on through the centuries. Libraries, on the other hand, are houses for our secular culture, the accumulated knowledge of a civilization on display for all to see. The chief difference, of course, is that the sacred culture relies on a living thing - the liturgy, to occur within the church. The library is a mute observer to individual edification. That said, I wish to draw your attention to the splendid main reading room of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (National Library of France) located in Paris. The building was designed by two different architects, Henri Labrouste and Jean-Louis Pascal. I am, however, unsure as to which was responsible for this portion of the building. The architecture is still rooted in classical ideas about proportion and form, but the thin steel columns and arches demonstrate the innovation made possible by the Industrial Revolution.