5. The Waning of Religious Authority

France Since 1871 (HIST 276)

Religion in France after the Revolution can be understood in terms of two forms of de-Christianization. The first of these is political, and takes place in the de jure separation of church and state. The second is a decline in religious practice among individual citizens. While the history of the former change is well documented, the latter is a more ambiguous phenomenon. Despite the statistical decline in religious participation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Catholicism in particular continues to play a significant role in the cultural imagination, or imaginaire, of many French people.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Catholicism and the Rest: Religious Distribution in France
04:41 - Chapter 2. The Decline of 'The Awful Thing': Anti-Clericalism and De-Christianization
21:34 - Chapter 3. Regional Differences in Religiosity
30:04 - Chapter 4. The Role of Women: Finding Independence through the Catholic Church
32:45 - Chapter 5. Disentangling Church and State: Regional Devotion and Developments

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Fall 2007.