Signposts in the historical erosion in French and Québécois Catholicism

Jean Louis Clement:

"The French bishops in the interwar years have favored the elaboration of a political theology which up to 1930, they rooted in the sovereignty of God, Creator of the Universe, and which later on, they built on the idea of the human person, at the service of which stand both society and State. They endeavored to promote that theology since 1919, but very specially in the thirties, in the thick of the parliamentary crisis. In the hope of countering the blossoming of political doctrines scorning the concept of 'person' the Assembly of Cardinals and Archbishops offered the faithful a political catechism drafted by the Abbe Daniel Joseph Lallement under the Daladier government. The episcopate entered into negotiations for a project that aimed at rooting in the conscience obedience to the Authority."

Anthony Sistrom:

Prior to the forties Cardinal Louis Billot, SJ spoke for the bishops. Vide his scathing article, "Liberalism" online in English. In the wake of the condemnation of Action francaise, personalism became the philosophy of the moment. No one has more eloquently critiqued personalism than Charles de Koninck (the only lay peritus at Vatican II). His article "On the primacy of the Common Good against the Personalists" (1943) is online. The date is important because the Quebec bishops had just introduced a marriage preparation program based on personalism that would spell the end of the Quebec traditional family.