The french revolution and the american-catholic today

[JimG]

“I’m 98% sure my history text book in Catholic grade school portrayed the French Revolution as a good thing. We learned the aristocrats were against “fraternity, equality and liberty” and that is apparently all we needed to know as 7th graders in a Catholic grade school in Denver. But the reality is that the French Revolution was a mass martyrdom of Catholics. Though done in the name of dis-empowering aristocrats (only 30 of the 1400 executed in the initial “Terror” in Paris were aristocrats) this bloody revolution was nothing short of a revolt against God and an overturning of all social order.”

The French Revolution and the American-Catholic Today – Padre Peregrino

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m 98% sure my history text book in Catholic grade school portrayed the French Revolution as a good thing.

IDK where he went to school, but I don’t recall the French Revolution ever being portrayed in a positive light in either my Catholic grade school or Catholic high school. To the extent it was even discussed, which was very little, we were taught it started with good intentions but quickly turned into some kind of rampant mob rule and mass murder, unlike the American Revolution which, thanks to our great Constitution, ensured life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for us all.

I’m always amused by how people assume that everybody in every school everywhere learned history in whatever bogus way they claim they themselves were taught.

Of course, this author goes on to say,

Now, I personally pray every day for martyrdom, so the Biden/Harris ticket might be my pass to heaven. So, I’m not too worried if it’s my time to go. But I warn you: It’s going to be easier for this priest to take martyrdom than you families who read this. A vote for Biden/Harris is a vote for the French Revolution.

so his credibility with me is about on the level of those Catholic Facebook pages that keep posting Countdown to the Kingdom gunk.

 

[JimG]

Well, I hope most schools teach it more like yours did. I don’t recall learning anything at all about the French Revolution in grade school.

Another excerpt from the article:

"The fact that most American Catholic grade-school children are currently taught that the French Revolution simply brought “fraternity, liberty and equality” might explain why most Catholics today blindly believe there is “mostly peaceful protesting” in places like Portland or Chicago.

Remember that the “Convention” of the French Revolution (in a Catholic country) also held that the royal family was to be “under the charge of the legislative body until tranquility is restored in Paris.” Then, they killed King Louis XVI and his wife. Most Catholics didn’t want it to happen, but they didn’t have the courage to do anything. They were shamed, without any evidence, into accepting the fact he must be evil just because the revolutionaries said so. And the cowardice of the right cost the lives of tens of thousands of Frenchmen on the right and on the left. Order would not return to France for at least seven more years."

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I am not sure how the author thinks “most Catholics” view Portland as “mostly peaceful protesting” when it’s been going on for 100 days and two men have been shot. Maybe he lives in some very liberal area.

 

[Regular_Atheist]

I can’t really imagine anyone is actually taught any of those things about the French Revolution. Oppression of Catholicism aside (the truth is a little more nuanced there though), it quite famously ended with Napoleon becoming dictator of France and eventually making himself the emperor, so it’s hard to believe that anyone actually thinks it lead to liberty, fraternity and equality as the Jacobins envisioned it.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’d really like to see this textbook he is claiming was used.

 

[JimG]

The peasants of the Vendee region never accepted the revolution, and fought back against the takeover of their way of life and the turning of their priests into government agents. But the revolutionaries sent an army to suppress them, which nearly turned into a genocide. The short book “For Altar and Throne: The Rising in the Vendee”. by Michael Davies, recounts the story.

 

[billsannie]

All in all, the French Revolution is an excellent example of why Church and State should be separated.

 

[tuffsmurf]

You weren’t really taught about the American revolution in a neutral way… Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness wasn’t for all.

 

[OddBird]

I can’t really imagine anyone is actually taught any of those things about the French Revolution.

Well, I’m French. I grew up being taught that the revolution was a wonderful thing and Napoleon a hero. Not a word was ever said about the Vendean martyrs at school (although that was quite a touchy subject because I grew up on the border of the “Vendée militaire” where that memory is still very present).

 

[Regular_Atheist]

Well, I’m French. I grew up being taught that the revolution was a wonderful thing and Napoleon a hero.

Oh right, I didn’t think about the French. That makes sense though, given that the revolution is still a big part of French nationalism, as is its associated slogans and symbols. The linked article seems to be from the USA though.

I’m English and we weren’t taught anything particularly positive about the French Revolution that I can recall. I remember learning about the Reign of Terror, but we were also taught that a lot of the foundational ideas for liberal democracy came from that period. I guess the overall narrative was of it as some kind of tragedy with good intentions that became barbarous.

 

[brown_bear]

In Italian schools, the French Revolution is presented as a highly positive event, especially thanks to the emphasis on the concepts of “liberté, egalité, fraternité”. The Terror is indeed described, but a bit as “it was a confusion, a moment of crisis, fanatics are everywhere”.

Napoleon has always been fairly well regarded in Italy, while the Spaniards have fiercely opposed it, and obviously the British: I’m not giving judgments, I hope it’s clear, but I summarize the facts.

To explain: in Italian schools there is a great deal of emphasis that Napoleon “brought the ideals of the French Revolution to Italy” while there is hardly any mention of the fact that he held the pope prisoner for years.

It was the period in which the Italians sought national unity, and perhaps Napoleon gave us the illusion of creating it. In fact, he solemnly had himself crowned king of Italy.

But the road to unity required another 50 years of patience.

 

[OddBird]

That makes sense though, given that the revolution is still a big part of French nationalism, as is its associated slogans and symbols.

Yes, it is, although I’d say that the way it is taught in the classroom is more propaganda than actual history, and voicing any criticism still could end in a big row. Having a nuanced and/or critical outlook on some the revolution’s figure, like Robespierre, is now rather well accepted, but beware of criticizing the revolution as a whole. I think this reveals a very problematic – and not pacified – outlook on our own history.

The Terror is mentioned, but, pretty much as @brown_bear says, as a Parisian “oopsie” in an overwhelmingly positive event.

There never was a single word of official recognition, apology, or gesture of healing on the Republic’s side for the Vendean genocide, although more than one Vendean out of four (between 200 000 and 300 000 dead on 800 000 inhabitants) was massacred. This is not part of the history programs in school, and people who talk about it are usually told they are “exaggerating” and it wasn’t that bad.

It was only as an adult that I realized that the term “genocide” was not an exaggeration and that there had indeed been, at the level of the state, the very conscious aim of exterminating the Vendeans simply because they were Catholic and monarchist, and how chillingly it appears in the documents from that period, like that letter from General Westerman to the Convention, written shortly before Christmas 1793 : “Republican citizens, the Vendée is no more. She died by our free sword, along with her women and children. I just buried her in the Savenay woods and swamps. Following your orders, I crushed the children under the hooves of horses and massacred the women who, for those at least, will no longer give birth to bandits. I have not one single prisoner on my conscience. I exterminated everything.”

 

[Tis_Bearself]

You weren’t really taught about the American revolution in a neutral way… Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness wasn’t for all.

Of course I wasn’t, and didn’t say I was. In elementary school, and even in high school and college, one is rarely taught anything “in a neutral way”. The curriculum is generally pushing an agenda. Smart kids see through it and go read on their own.

I’m always amused when people start pointing out how US teaching isn’t neutral. It’s never neutral when they present it from their own perspective either. It’s just biased in some other different way.

My point is not that I was taught “in a neutral way” but that I was not taught as the article writer said his Catholic school taught.