![Beginning to Restructure the Institutional Church: Canadian Social Catholics and the CCF, 1931-1944 (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) (Essay)](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
![Beginning to Restructure the Institutional Church: Canadian Social Catholics and the CCF, 1931-1944 (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) (Essay)](/assets/artwork/1x1-42817eea7ade52607a760cbee00d1495.gif)
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Beginning to Restructure the Institutional Church: Canadian Social Catholics and the CCF, 1931-1944 (Cooperative Commonwealth Federation) (Essay)
Historical Studies 2008, Annual, 74
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Publisher Description
Following the formation of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in the early 1930s, prominent Archbishops in Quebec issued episcopal directives against participating in and voting for the party. Re-examining how the Church opened to the CCF and offered limited acceptance by the mid-1940s reveals broader implications for the development of Roman Catholicism in Canada. During the Depression-era, much of Roman Catholic social and political thought was being reframed within a neo-Thomist tradition that influenced the development of social Catholicism in Canada. Since the platform of the party reflected the aspirations of many social Catholics, they in turn challenged how the institutional Church engaged economic and political questions particularly with respect to instructing the laity. This article argues that accommodation between the Church and the CCF was largely the product of social Catholicism influencing episcopal decisions and was part of the broader forces of secularization and Canadianization beginning to restructure the institutional Church. Apres la formation du CCF au debut des annees 1930, des archeveques du Quebec ont emis des directives interdisant aux fideles de participer d ce parti et de voter pour ses candidats. Le reexamen de la facon dont l'Eglise, au milieu des annees 1940, s'est ouverte au CCF et a fini par l'accepter, au moins moderement, revele des implications plus vastes au niveau du developpement du catholicisme au Canada. A l'epoque de la Depression, une grande partie de la pensee sociale et politique catholique commenfait a etre reformulee au sein d'une tradition neo-thomiste qui a influence le developpement du catholicisme social au Canada. Comme la plate-forme electorale du parti refletait les aspirations de beaucoup de catholiques sociaux, ceux-ci ont a leur tour remis en question la facon dont l'Eglise institutionnelle abordait les questions economiques et politiques, en particulier dans son enseignement aux laics. Cet article soutient que l'influence du catholicisme social sur les decisions episcopales a rendu possible cet accord entre l'Eglise et le CCF, et qu'elle s'inscrit dans le mouvement plus general de secularisation et de canadianisation qui commencait alors a restructurer l'Eglise institutionnelle.