The MRP’s influence on colonial policy stimulated intense disagreements within the Catholic public sphere. In the press, Catholic activists charged the MRP with “spiritual bankruptcy.” These debates politicized Catholic youth associations, which challenged an older generation of Catholic political leaders.
This paper will explore the role of Catholic faith in politics in the Fourth Republic. How and why did critics, including intellectuals and Catholic youth activists challenge the MRP? It will analyze the columns in Catholic publications, such as Témoignage Chrétien, in L’Express, by Academician François Mauriac, and the memos published by the leaders of Catholic youth organization during colonial crises in the 1950s, as well as the response by the MRP.
The analysis of the colonial debate between the MRP, Catholic intellectuals, and youth associations has implications for our understanding of how the boundaries between religion and politics evolved in the postwar French Republic. It suggests that politics were not as secular as many scholars presume and demonstrates the impact of the colonies on politics and society in the hexagon. The paper will argue that these colonial debates had important consequences in democratizing the Catholic public sphere. In addition, they contributed to the demise of the MRP in the 1960s, since faith became an unreliable mobilizing force in elections. Finally, it proposes that historians should accord greater attention to political contestation by French youth prior to May 1968.