Sangnier, Marc

SANGNIER, MARC. - Politician and sociologist, b. in Paris on 3 April 1873, d. there on 28 May 1950. Sent to the Collège Stanislas to prepare for the École Polytechnique, at the end of his studies he entered a military career as an engineering officer. He left it in 1898 to devote himself to apostolate and propaganda. A student of Ibsen, Tolstoy, Gratry, Pascal, Ollé-Laprune, Blondel and the encyclicals of Leo XIII, he became a convinced and tenacious champion of Christianity in social life.

Already at the Collège Stanislas he gathered his companions in the crypt to discuss social questions and sowed the seed of the "great tree of Christian democracy and social Christianity." In 1899 he merged his Bulletin de la Chrypte with the Sillon of his friend Paul Renaudin and created study circles for students and workers. He thus became the head of the militant movement known as the Sillon. In 1901 he began publication of the weekly Eveil démocratique, followed in 1905 by the daily Démocratie and the bulletin L'âme commune. Thus the Sillon movement had spread through much of France, and in 1902 the first national congress was held in Paris; in 1903 the second at Tours. S. gathered the support and encouragement of not a few French bishops. On 17 Dec. 1902 Card. Rampolla addressed a letter to him, signifying that "the aim and tendencies of the Sillon have greatly pleased His Holiness." In 1904 the third congress took place at Lyon. The organization progressed and aimed at unifying itself by means of a central secretariat. To the annual national congresses were added half-yearly local congresses; social study circles multiplied, along with popular institutes with lectures and discussions, courses in languages and technical subjects, study rooms with circulating libraries. However, after these promising beginnings, S.'s activity began to arouse fears and apprehensions; and this was after the accession of Pius X to the supreme pontificate. On the occasion of the national congress of Jan. 1905, Card. Merry del Val addressed to the Archbishop of Paris, Card. Richard, a letter in which, after praise of the Sillon, this association was invited, in the name of the Holy Father, to clarify certain points of its program, to follow always the teachings of the Church and to unite its forces with those of other Catholics so as not to diminish the advantages of unity of action. The following year, 1906, the priest E. Barbier published in two volumes a critical study entitled: The Errors of the Sillon (religious, social, polemical), and in 1910 there followed a book by N. Arics: The Sillon and the Democratic Movement, likewise with opposing criticisms. Others, however, undertook its defense, notably among them E. Desgrées (1907). In 1907, on the occasion of S.'s visit to Rome, Pius X admonished him concerning the deviations of his movement.

Reservations and warnings were raised by some bishops, since it appeared that practical action tended toward an order of ideas and a propaganda of debatable doctrines. Despite the bishops' admonitions, the polemics grew sharper. A decisive word from the supreme authority was therefore awaited and desired. And this was the letter that, dated 25 Aug. 1910, Pius X addressed to the French episcopate and which opens with the words: Notre charge apostolique. Examining the constitution and the program of the Sillon, it first deplores the Sillon's claim to withdraw from the direction of ecclesiastical authority, asserting that it was safeguarding only material interests, whereas in fact its supporters set themselves up as teachers of moral, social, civil and religious doctrine, thereby touching on the Church's own domain. It then analyzes the doctrinal errors of the Sillon; first among these, the regeneration of the working classes in a manner not conforming to the fundamental principles of the social encyclicals of Leo XIII; furthermore, an exaggerated exaltation of human dignity and, except in matters of religion, its complete autonomy; political emancipation and the freeing of the people from every authority other than itself; economic emancipation, that is, independence from the employer class; intellectual emancipation, that is, liberation from the so-called ruling class. Recalling the norms of his predecessor, Pius X affirmed that the Sillon, by enfeoffing Catholicism to a particular form of government, namely a universal democracy understood as the prevailing authority of the people, divided Catholics and compromised the Church. He recognized in the leaders of the Sillon men of right intention, sincere in their purposes and exemplary in their religious life; but he concluded the letter by prescribing that they submit to the dispositions of the bishops, subdividing into diocesan groups called Sillons catholiques; each member being free to keep his political preferences, provided they were purged of whatever was not, in this matter, in conformity with the teachings of the Church.

S. received the pontifical letter with reverent obedience, and continued his apostolate on behalf of the people in absolute submission. Thus the Sillon catholique arose, and in 1911 a new periodical was born: L'aube nouvelle, which was its organ and had wide circulation in the French dioceses. S. then continued the struggle on exclusively political ground, founding in 1912 the Ligue de la jeune république, an organization of republican, democratic, internationalist Catholics as opposed to the monarchical, reactionary and nationalist Action Française. After the war of 1914-18, in which he did his duty, he took part in the electoral struggle and in 1919 was elected deputy for the Seine on the list of the Republican National Bloc. Not enrolled in any parliamentary group, he carried out his activity as a deputy, supporting the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, pure proportional representation, state subsidies to free schools and the prize of honor for Catholic students. A champion of international reconciliation, he deplored with the Pope the annexation of the Ruhr, upheld the necessity of friendship with Germany, laid the foundations of a Christian Democratic International and organized the international democratic congresses that brought together representatives of every nationality, preferably at Bierville. In 1923 he suffered an attack by the Action Française. In the elections of 1924 he broke away from the Republican National Bloc and stood in a new political formation called the Republican Union for Peace, but was not elected. He then devoted himself to pacifist propaganda: he advocated the abolition of compulsory military service as a premise for disarmament (1924) and founded at Bierville the Foyers de la paix, from which in 1930 the Ligue française pour les auberges de la jeunesse was born. Having resigned as president of the Ligue de la jeune république, he became a contributor to L'Aube (1932). Until 1940 he took an active part in the struggle against racism, and under the German occupation he became a member of the Resistance, for which he was arrested and interned at Fresnes (1944). After the liberation he was acclaimed honorary president of the Popular Republican Movement and elected deputy from 1945.

Principal writings: La vie démocratique (Paris 1904); Education sociale du peuple (Lyon 1904); L'esprit démocratique (Paris 1905); Une méthode d'éducation démocratique (ibid. 1906); La lutte pour la démocratie (ibid. 1908); Discours (1891-1925), 8 vols. (ibid. 1910-28); La Pologne opprimée (ibid. 1913); Contrôle à l'éventail system (ibid. 1913); La république démocratique (ibid. 1914); Aux sources de l'éloquence (ibid. 1917); La paix pour la jeunesse (ibid. 1926); Que choisira la France? (ibid. 1927); La papauté et la paix (ibid. 1928); L'éducation de l'enfant (ibid. 1928); Albert de Mun (ibid. 1932); Le pacifisme d'action (ibid. 1936).

Augusto Moreschini-Agostino Vian