Maurice Blondel, Social Catholicism, and Action Francaise: The Clash over the Church's Role in Society during the Modernist Era

How does the Church realize its public mission? How do different theological and philosophical commitments influence the conception of the Church's role in the public square? This work casts light on contemporary arguments over social Catholicism and the believer's role in society by illuminating a similar dispute among French Catholics during the Modernist Crisis (1909-1914).

In the first decades of the twentieth century French Catholics were sharply divided over what strategy the Church sh...