SANGNIER, MARC. — Politician and sociologist, born in Paris on 3 April 1873, died there on 28 May 1950. Sent to the Collège Stanislas to attend the École Polytechnique, at the end of his studies he entered the military career as an engineering officer. He left it in 1898 to devote himself to apostolate and propaganda. A student of Ibsen, Tolstoi, 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 democratic and social Christianity.” In 1899 he merged his Bulletin de la Chrypte with his friend Paul Renaudin’s Sillon and created study circles for students and workers. He thus became the leader of the combative movement called Sillon. In 1901 he began publishing the weekly Eveil démocratique, followed in 1905 by the daily Démocratie and the bulletin L'âme commune. In this way the Sillon movement spread throughout much of France, and in 1902 the first national congress was held in Paris; in 1903 the second in Tours. S. received the support and encouragement of not a few French bishops. On 17 December 1902, Cardinal Rampolla addressed a letter to him informing him that “the purpose and tendencies of the Sillon have been highly pleasing to His Holiness.” In 1904 the third congress took place in Lyon. The organization progressed and sought to unify itself through a central secretariat. In addition to the annual national congresses, semiannual local congresses were held; social-study circles multiplied, as did popular institutes with lectures and discussions, courses in languages and technical subjects, and study rooms with circulating libraries. Yet after these promising beginnings, S.’s activity began to arouse fears and apprehensions; this occurred after Pius X’s accession to the supreme pontificate. On the occasion of the national congress of January 1905, Cardinal Merry del Val addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Richard, in which, after praising the Sillon, he invited this association, in the name of the Holy Father, to clarify certain points of its program, always to follow the teachings of the Church, and to join its forces with those of other Catholics so as not to diminish the advantages of united action. The following year, 1906, the priest E. Barbier published in two volumes a critical study entitled Gli errori del Sillon (religious, social, and polemical), and in 1910 a book by N. Arics followed: Il Sillon e il movimento democratico, likewise containing opposing criticisms. Others, however, undertook its defense, notably 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 admonitions were voiced by certain bishops, since it appeared that practical action was tending toward a system of ideas and the propagation of questionable doctrines. Despite the bishops’ warnings, the controversies grew sharper. A decisive pronouncement by the supreme authority was therefore awaited and desired. It was the letter that Pius X addressed to the French episcopate on 25 August 1910, opening with the words: Notre charge apostolique. In examining the constitution and program of the Sillon, it first deplores the Sillon’s claim to withdraw from the direction of ecclesiastical authority, asserting that it safeguarded only material interests, whereas its advocates set themselves up as teachers of social, civil, and religious morality, thereby entering the Church’s proper sphere. It then analyzes the doctrinal errors of the Sillon: first among them, the regeneration of the working classes in a manner not conforming to the fundamental principles of Leo XIII’s social encyclicals; furthermore, an exaggerated exaltation of human dignity and, except in religious matters, its complete autonomy; political emancipation and the liberation of the people from every authority other than itself; economic emancipation, that is, independence from the employing class; and intellectual emancipation, that is, liberation from the so-called ruling class. Recalling the norms of his predecessor, Pius X affirmed that the Sillon, by subordinating Catholicism to a particular form of government, namely a universal democracy understood as the predominant authority of the people, divided Catholics and compromised the Church. He recognized in the leaders of the Sillon men of upright intention, sincere in their purposes and exemplary in their religious life; but he concluded the letter by prescribing that they submit to the provisions of the bishops, dividing themselves into diocesan groups called Sillons catholiques; each member was free to retain his political preferences, provided that they were purged of anything contrary, in this matter, to the teachings of the Church.
S. received the papal letter with reverent obedience and continued his apostolate on behalf of the people in complete submission. Thus the Sillon catholique arose, and in 1911 a new periodical was founded: L'aube nouvelle, which became its organ and achieved wide circulation in the French dioceses. S. then continued the struggle on an exclusively political terrain, founding in 1912 the Ligue de la jeune république, an organization of republican, democratic, and internationalist Catholics opposed to the monarchist, reactionary, and nationalist Action Française. After the 1914–18 war, in which he performed 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 belonging to any parliamentary group, he carried out his activity as a deputy by supporting the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, pure proportional representation, state agreements with free schools, and an honor prize for Catholic students. A champion of international reconciliation, he joined the Pope in deploring the annexation of the Ruhr, supported the need for friendship with Germany, laid the foundations of a Christian democratic International, and organized international democratic congresses bringing together representatives of every nationality, preferably at Bierville. In 1923 he was the victim of an attack by Action Française. In the elections of 1924 he broke with the Republican National Bloc and stood as a candidate 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 prerequisite for disarmament (1924) and founded the Foyers de la paix at Bierville, from which the Ligue française pour les auberges de la jeunesse emerged in 1930. 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 liberation he was acclaimed honorary president of the Mouvement républicain populaire and elected deputy from 1945 onward.
Principal writings: La vie démocratique (Paris 1904); Education sociale du peuple (Lyon 1904); L'esprit démocratique (Paris 1905); Une méthode d'éducation démocratique (there 1906); La lutte pour la démocratie (there 1908); Discours (1891-1925), 8 vols. (there 1910–28); La Pologne opprimée (there 1913); Contrôle à l'éventail system (there 1913); La république démocratique (there 1914); Aux sources de l'éloquence (there 1917); La paix pour la jeunesse (there 1926); Que choisira la France? (there 1927); La papauté et la paix (there 1928); L'éducation de l'enfant (there 1928); Albert de Mun (there 1932); Le pacifisme d'action (there 1936).
and following pages; G. Guitton, Léon Harmel, II, there 1927, pp. 233–34, 352 and following pages; R. Kothen, La pensée et l'action sociale des catholiques, 1789-1944, Leuven 1945, pp. 405–11; L. Riva Senseverino, Il novem. sindacale crist. dal 1850 al 1939, Rome 1950, p. 176 and following pages; on M. S., V. Ephem. theol. Loew., 36 (1950), pp. 576–77.
Augusto Moreschini-Agostino Vian